Military AI Works

You may remember my series from 2014 in Payerne, when the Swiss Air Force was celebrating their 100 year anniversary over two weekends with an unbelievably good event.

Payerne 2014
Payerne 2014 - 07.09.2014 - The sunny day Part 1
Payerne 2014 - 07.09.2014 - The sunny day Part 2
Payerne 2014 - 07.09.2014 - The sunny day Part 3


Back then I said that some day I would go and see the public shooting training on the Axalp. The Axalp is 2250 m above sea high up in the Swiss mountains. This year I finally managed to get there, and here are some of the pictures I have taken.

Eurocopter EC635 - while some special guests have been flown up, the rest of the ~7.500 people had to climb for hours, and I don't talk tracking trails!


Two F/A-18 coming in with flares






Since the F-5 will be decommissioned soon this is most likely one of the last big displays together





The paratroopers were jumping from two Pilatus PC-6






Two Super Pumas on a fire fighting mission




While the Super Puma is going off, the Eurocpter shows a mountain SAR mission










A Super Puma releasing flares and doing some impressive mountain climbing
















F/A-18 Solo Display with low pass, flares, climb display and more


























The Patrouille Suisse giving another of her stunning shows






























































The Super Pumas coming for a final great display






I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Wow, that's some backdrop Martin. Makes for some wonderful shots. The mirrored F-5s are captured perfectly.

John

Beautiful shots Martin! What a unique and one of a kind in the world airshow!

Thanks for the nice words!

I wanted to go for so many years and this time everything was falling in place. And the weather played ball as well.

Only bad luck of the day was that either camera or lens was letting me down. Most shots are extremely unsharp. I noticed the issue before the show started. Even the mountain on the opposite side was blurred, and it was not moving very fast...

I then decided to enjoy the day, pretend everything was alright and look at home at the result. 300 out of 1500 were okay at the end. When trying to check for the error the back panel of my 7D was suddenly looking all wrong and then I was sure the camera was failing.

The next day everything was fine again, and every test picture was as sharp as supposed to. But now the trust is gone...

Some lovely shots there mate, loving the back drop as well