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The Canadian National Exhibition has been around for well over 75 years, taking place on the outskirts of downtown Toronto, this exhibition shuts down an area of 8 city blocks around the Direct Energy Center in the historic ‘Exhibition Place. The exhibition started in 1879, after the success of the last years traveling fair, it has always been host to the most state of the art technology. The shops and attractions have always represented the interests of the Canadian public, which has drawn in well over 6 million people from around the world in the last 10 years of the CNE.

 

 

(The kids fair ground at the CNE, Photo© 2009)

In this article I’ll take you through the pride of Canada’s aviation history, and long time partner of the CNE, the Canadian International Airshow.

As to it’s name the CIAS has been wowing crouds for 60 years, and celebrated it’s 60 year anniversary at the CNE, on the same day that Canadian aviation took flight 100 years ago with it’s first powered aircraft, the Silver Dart which took flight in 1907. Watching this airshow brings back the history of this still proud and powerful nation through the message of flight.

This years CIAS contained airshow preformers from around the world, both civilian and military, I have listed them below, with the planes they fly (for you aircraft buffs out there!):

Canadian Heritage Flight: CF-18 Hornet, CT-114 Tutor, and the F-86 Hawk One Sabre.

USAF Heritage Flight: P-51 Mustang, F-16, and F-22 (The F-16 was replaced this year durring the show by another P-51, due to an engine failure)

The RCAF SnowBirds: CT-114 Tutor

The USAF Blue Angels: F/A-18 Hornet

The Horsemen: P-51 Mustangs

Matt Chapman: CAP 580

RCAF: CF-Griffon Helicopter

Mike Wiskus: S-111B

Mike Goulian: Castrol Aviator Extra 330SC

Russell Air Group: Spitfire

Royal Canadian Air Cadets: Airforce Training Gliders

As well as naval appearences by the Canadian Navy’s HMCS Ville De Quebec.

 

 

(The Canadian Heritage Flight going over the HMCS Ville De Quebec, Photo© 2009)

 

This years CIAS lasted well over 4 hours, with tributes to both modern and past Canadian and international soldiers. I have included this and many of my favorite moments of the CIAS in the following video clip, sadly I was un-able to get pictures/video of the RCAF Snowbirds due to the extreme length of the airshow which required me to move on to eat, so grab a bite ahead of time so you can see all of this amazing airshow!.

I’ll leave this article about one of the greatest airshow experiences in the world with a gallery of photos from the CIAS at the CNE 2009.

 

 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 4:25 am and is filed under Ontario, Toronto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.