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| A Day in Provence… St. Dizier, 18 June
The first stage in planning (apart from ensuring your
passport is up-to-date) should be to check what is on, and where better to find out than Scramble’s Airshow Page. Next,
check out the feasibility of the journey using Expedia
to find out where your chosen event actually is. Then, to book your
Elsewhere on the airfield numerous other Jaguars were
dotted around in compo Thanks go to Shaun and Dino for their help in discovering the French countryside.
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crossing, try 
A 05:15 departure from Dover meant an early
start, but it docked before 8am French time allowing plenty of time to speed down the
deserted autoroutes to our destination. A good tip here is to follow the red French road
numbers, and not the green Euroroute numbers which can be vague and misleading. The
autoroute tolls cost about £25 for the day, but if you don’t mind getting to your
destination a bit later then the toll-free routes could be used instead. We arrived at
Saint Dizier around 11:30 in glorious sunshine, the sky completely cloudless and we knew
that a hat and plenty of drinks were going to be a necessity. Our first surprise was the
20Fr entrance fee charged (only £2), we certainly didn't complain about that!
Base Aérienne 113 is home to three squadrons of
Jaguars under EC.7, and our drive into the car park took us past the Western HAS site
area. Plenty of resident aircraft, as well as some flying display participants were
dispersed in this area, making a pleasing change to the normal airshow background of
Ferris wheels and hot-dog vans. The static park was mainly French as expected, the only
exceptions being a pair of Italian fast-jets (AMX and Tornado ADV), a German Tornado, and
a Dutch F-16A MLU, but some of the highlights were the newly painted AlphaJet and the Test
Centre Mystere 20 sporting a Mirage F1 nose. Also present was a three-bladed French Air
Force Tucano, visibly different from it’s four-bladed RAF cousins. 
The hangars behind the static area housed plenty of refreshment
facilities, which, considering the blistering temperatures experienced must have been well
frequented. To the East of the hangar areas was another flight line for flying
participants. The Moroccan Air Force were present with seven of their CAP231s, as well as
a support CN235, but a specially painted Jaguar A from the local unit and a prototype
Rafalè B twin seater were notable too. To allow the French 
public a close up view of their hard earned Francs in action, an area next to
the static park was cordoned off to allow the flying display aircraft to taxi close by,
this being a reasonably common procedure at events like this. This made up for the
altitude at which most of the twelve-ship Jaguar airfield attacks were carried out, a
strained neck as you looked skywards to find these attackers was assured!
unds and hangars, and
amongst the maintenance and preserved airframes on the base, the gate guard F-84 and
Mirage IVA were the most impressive. To sum up our day, a relaxed atmosphere airshow with
a certain style, well over thirty different Jaguars were noted amongst the eighty-odd
aircraft, a lot of miles (or kilometres) were driven, but we encountered no problems at
all. A trip like this should be easily achievable by anyone, and it did make a change from
all those NATO Standard fighters, so go on, give it a go!