Argentine Air Force Anniversaries Catalogue

A classical view from an early open day event held at El Palomar’s I Air Brigade in November 1994 (photo: Carlos Ay).

In addition to open days, Air Force has held aviation charity events since the late-1990s. A VII Air Brigade Bell 212 and your friendly neighbour, Spiderman, were part in one such event in August 2007 (photo: Argentine Air Force).

S-70 Blackhawk H-01 landing President Carlos Menem at the 87th Air Force anniversary ceremony held in El Palomar in August 1999 (photo: Federico Puppio).

Noted at another Air Force charity event are “Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar” getting off F.28 Fellowship TC-54 at a Three Wise Men Air Day event held in Aeroparque “Jorge Newbery” in January 2012 (photo: Andrés Rangugni).

Three VI Air Brigade Mirage IIIEA fighters performing a flypast at the Córdoba Garrison Air Festival held in October 1996 (photo: Carlos Ay).

Shortly after gaining institutional independence, the Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina, or FAA) saw it fit to start celebrating landmarks in their (then) short-lived history. Starting in the mid-1940s and strengthening this practice in the second half of the 20th Century, FAA consolidated three more or less regular celebrations marking historical events (service origins in 1912 and their first international combat experience in 1982) or attempting to project their social influence to the civilian population (open days and other events explicitly directed to the general public). The oldest of these events was first carried out in 1946 in San Justo and was designated as the first “Air Week” (Semana de Aeronáutica). As implied by its name, the event was designed to last at least a whole week in late September and was destined to promote Air Force interests to the general public through a variety of cultural, scientific and flying events. Under that or the “Air & Space Week” (Semana Aeronáutica y Espacial) designation used between the mid-1960s and the late-1990s, the event took place more or less regularly through 2002, when close to 40 editions had been held.

2014 Forecast

As anticipated in earlier previews, the First Battle anniversary ceremony was again held at I Air Brigade (I Brigada Aérea, I Br Aé) facilities in El Palomar, starting at 11am on Thursday 1 May. The Air Force Day ceremony is expected to take place on Friday 8 August at Military Air Base Morón, and an air show dubbed “Argentina Vuela” (“Argentina Flies”) is now formally schedulded at the same location between Wednesday 6 and Sunday 10. As soon as more precise details are made available on thess events, this sidebar will be updated or announcements will be made through our Facebook and Twitter accounts (updated July 21, 2014).

Even though additional research is needed to acquire a more conclusive view on these peculiar demonstrations, several air weeks outstand distinctively. The II Air Week (1947) took up a whole block of downtown Buenos Aires 9 de Julio Avenue to exhibit several of the many aircraft types acquired during Juan Perón’s first presidential administration. A decade later, the XII Air Week (1957) was dominated by a contingent of over 30 USAF aircraft visiting Ezeiza and Aeroparque in a demonstration of US public relations and power projection capabilities. The 1968 and 1972 editions brought the show into the Space Age and took place in Argentine Rural Society fair grounds in Buenos Aires’ Palermo sector, while the XXVI Air & Space Week was also exceptional in featuring a fantastic flying display over Paraná River and the National Flag Monument in Rosario (Santa Fé) in 1974. The last meaningful air & space week probably was the one held in Buenos Aires in 1987 to celebrate the service’s 75th anniversary with a week-long exposition in Buenos Aires district, Barrio Norte, and a closing air show that was marred by poor weather in Aeroparque “Jorge Newbery”.

Two Gloster Meteors (I-003 and I-006), one Vickers Viking, one DH-104 Dove, one C-47 Skytrain (T-51), one AT-11 Kansan, two G.55 Centauros (Ea-23 and C-09) and a Bristol Freighter (T-34) parked on 9 de Julio Avenue between Sarmiento and Cangallo streets for the II Aeronautical Expo, Buenos Aires, 1947 (photo: Argentine National Archives #321499/B73499).

According to this National Air & Space Magazine advertisement, the XII Air Week was to be held in October 1957. The event actually took place in November to accomodate the US Air Force power projection agenda (photo courtesy: Pablo Potenze).

According to this La Nación daily clipping, the 1968 Air & Space Week required the Air Force to taxi aircraft from Buenos Aires airpark to the Argentine Rural Society fair ground in Palermo (photo courtesy: Pablo Potenze).

Celebrating the national flag and looking for descentralized venues, the XXVI Air & Space Week was held in Rosario (Santa Fe) and movilized a sizeable fleet of aircraft to the city’s airport (photo: Marcelo W. Miranda).

An unconventional venue, the Buenos Aires City autodrome, was adopted for several early-1980s air & space weeks. Noticed here is an IA-58A Pucará demonstrating in front of the pits (photo: Carlos Ay).

An Argentine Air Force Bell 212 demonstrating at 2009 edition of the Morón open day (photo: Esteban Brea).

Unfortunately, domestic political trends, foreign influences and fiscal realities saw this distinctive tradition start fading into oblivion by the turn of the century. Starting with an event held in El Palomar in late-1989, air & space weeks started being gradually superseded by shorter and more conventional open day events (“jornadas de puertas abiertas”). Hardly lasting more than a weekend (2 to 3 days maximum), they nonetheless became a frequent (if not regular) practice and on occasions managed to get branded with special names such as “Córdoba Garrison Air Festival” (1996), “Air Show South America” (1999), “Palomar 2000”, “Morón Air Show” (2009) or “Argentina Air Fest” (2010). Unlike the air & space weeks, which occasionally took place at facilities not under military jurisdiction, open days have all taken place at Air Forces bases throughout the country. Interestingly enough, both air week and open day events were held concurrently in at least two transitional years: 1995 and 2002.

 Coming of age: Air Force & First Battle Days

In 2012, Air Force celebrated the Military Aviation School centennial. In addition to a massive, multinational celebration held in Córdoba on 10 August, most service aircraft were decorated with ‘100 years’ stickers, as modelled by Fokker F.28s T-50 and TC-52 during the centennial air parade (photo: Gabriel Luque).

After the Malvinas War, most Air Force ceremonies feature a “missing man” formation to those fallen in the line of duty, illustrated here for the 2013 Air Force Day ceremony (photo: Horacio Clariá).

A classical postcard image of a recent-time Air Force Day ceremony shows Air Force High School cadets, NCOs and officers forming on the ground as C-130H Hercules TC-61 takes off from Córdoba’s aviation school for the Centennial air parade in August 2012 (photo: José Luis Ghezzi).

Learjet 35A T-21 was part of a massive air parade celebrating the Air Force’s 72nd anniversary and the IA-63 Pampa roll-out at Córdoba’s aircraft factory in August 1984 (photo: Carlos Ay).

Attempting to impress President Isabel Martínez de Perón, the 1974 Air Force Day called for a massive deployment to Morón, where the three IA-58 Pucará prototypes were displayed statically and in-flight (photo: Raúl Hrubisko).

A more relevant celebration was incorporated in the 1950s. Presidential Decree #14,204 established in 1954 that 10 August was Air Force Day (“Dia de la Fuerza Aérea”), paying tribute to the nation’s first military air unit, the Military Aviation School (Escuela de Aviación Militar, or EAM) created in 1912. That way, FAA managed to equal its Navy and Army peers in getting its own “service day” and have it “legally” established that the service had been born in 1912, not in 1945 as Army flyers and several historians continue to argue. It was not until the late-1950s, though, that Air Force Day ceremonies started taking place in earnest, thus strengthening the notion that Air Force was not such a “young armed service”. Most of these events have subsequently taken place regularly in El Palomar (the cradle of Argentine military aviation) or Córdoba’s EAM (the unit celebrating this specific anniversary), although Morón and the service’s high command in Retiro (Buenos Aires) have also served as “convenience” venues. Other locations have been used less commonly.

One year after its first international combat experience in 1982, Air Force adopted its third and most relevant historical anniversary, the First Battle Day (“Bautismo de Fuego”) ceremony honouring those who fought or died in the Malvinas campaign (1 April-16 June 1982). First held on 1 May 1983, the ceremony has rotated through a variety of air bases and other locations relevant to that campaign. However, fiscal and political realities have seen the ceremony moving to more central locations in Greater Buenos Aires instead (Morón, El Palomar or Retiro). In its more than three decades of existence, the celebration hasn’t been exempt of criticism. At times, the event has been perturbed by poor government-to-Air Force relations, diplomatic tensions with the United Kingdom or internal Air Force divisions. Last, but not the least, certain authors contend that the Air Force’s “true” first battle took place not in May 1982 but in June 1955, when Air Force and Navy aircraft bombed Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo in a failed attempt to kill President Juan D. Perón…

Impregnated with patriotic sentiment, flags from all Air Force units participating in the 1982 war feature prominently on First Battle anniversary parades. Shown here is the 2013 event held in El Palomar (photo: Santiago Cortelezzi).

First Battle anniversaries are usually rounded up by Air Force aircraft from different units performing a fly past and “missing man” manoeuvre. Noted here are four Hercules and eight Pucaráes opening up the 26th anniversary air parade held in Morón in 2008 (photo: Alberto Urizio).

The civil aviation contribution to the war effort is frequently remembered at First Battle ceremonies. Noticed here are two Boeing 737-200s, representing crews from state-owned airlines Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral, participating in the 20th anniversary flypast (photo: Jorge Albanese).

First Battle ceremonies held in Morón usually feature 1982 war aircraft veterans from the local Museum. Noticed here is A-4C Skyhawk C-321, pictured after the 2007 event (photo: Carlos Ay).

Air Force High School cadets and NCO School applicants attending the 2013 ceremony framed by a VII Air Brigade Mi-17 helicopter (photo: Santiago Cortelezzi).

Celebrations data base

Below is our list of Air & Space Weeks and Air Force and First Battle days identified through research, with other public manifestations added when relevant and whenever information was available. With additional research, links will be added to pages providing detailed data and images on those events. Should you have information to make this table more complete and precise, please feel free to send your comments through our Facebook or Twitter platforms.

Bibliography: Atilio Baldini & Sergio Bontti: “I.Aé.-24 Calquín” (Fuerzas Aeronavales, Argentina, 2007), Esteban Raczynski: “Los Clásicos en los Cielos del Cono Sur (Fascículo 7: DC-4, DC-6 & Caravelle en Argentina)” (SCAN/Ediciones Argentinidad, Argentina, 2011), Fighter Pilots Association: “Argentine Air Force History, Volume IV, Fighter Aviation 1912-1982” (Argentine Air Force Historical Studies Directorate, Buenos Aires, 2005), Gabriel Pavlovcic, Esteban Raczynski & Michael Magnusson: “La Leyenda de los Morane-Saulnier” (SCAN/Ediciones Argentinidad, Argentina, 2012) and National Secretary of Aeronautics: “La Aeronáutica Nacional al Servicio del País” (Argentina, 1948).

Internet sources: Aeroespacio, Asociación Bahía Agradable de Veteranos de Guerra, El Diario (Paraná), El Eco de Tandil, Fuerza Aérea Argentina (official and Facebook), Fuerzas Aeronavales, Hernán Longoni (blog), Jorge Lonardi (blog), La Nación, La Voz del Interior, Rumbo al Sud and Walter Betancor (blog).

Acknowledgments: Arturo Ay, Esteban Brea, Guillermo Gebel, Martín Kubo, Guillermo Landa, Roberto Morales, Julio Pérez Mugica, Pablo Potenze, Andrés Rangugni, Rafael Reca and others whose names were withheld upon request contributed to this report. This story and table were initially published by Aeromilitaria Argentina and eventually migrated to Gaceta Aeronáutica in January 2012.