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The biggest airport festival in the Saarland will take place again from Aug. 14 to 16 in the Blumengarten in Bexbach. Bexbach is about 20 minutes west of Kaiserslautern.
Aero-Club Bexbach expects more than 1,000 visitors from the Saarland and the neighboring Rheinland-Pfalz. This will be the 50th airport festival the Aero-Club Bexbach has hosted since 1959.
“Don’t only look and admire, but fly with us and experience the flight” is the motto Aero-Club Bexbach President Dr. Karlheinz Pohmer goes by.
Besides different acrobatic maneuvers by different types of airplanes, there will be orientation flights for all ages, information regarding flying, music and entertainment.
There will also be a program for the youngest visitors; the magician Paldo will entertain the children with magical tricks. The beginning of the airport festival will be initiated by the traditional open air rock concert by the cult band Elliot. This cover band from the Neunkirchen area is one of the most popular live acts in the southwestern part of Germany.
The “Rock am Hangar” will start the open air festival at 8 p.m. Aug. 14.
After dark, the stage will be glowing in romantic lights from the hot air balloons on the nearby airfield and will mesmerize the visitors while Elliot rocks on until midnight. The actual airport festival will start at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday with a focus on flying.
“We would like to show our guests the fascination of flying and, of course, hope that our spark of enthusiasm will leap over to our audience,” Dr. Pohmer said. “Our visitors should experience the joy of flying themselves, therefore, we give them the opportunity to participate in orientation flights and let them experience the area they live in from a bird eye’s view.”
Another highlight of the airport festival will be the acrobatic maneuvers. Pilots in their motorized planes and gliders will perform acrobatic maneuvers to the sound of music. Pilots will entertain the audience with spectacular loops, rollover, upswings, downswings and turns. A turn is a very difficult maneuver. The pilot will climbs perpendicular in the sky then, right before it stalls, drop the plane down and recover. The visitors can also admire inverted flights. Smoke on the wingtips will help make the maneuvers more visible to those watching.
The main goal of the airport festival is to recruit new members.
“We would like to show our guests that the dream of flying does not have to stay a dream, it can become a reality,” Dr. Pohmer said. “Flying, especially soaring, is a great sport and an adventure for all ages. As a matter of fact, it is more affordable than a lot of other sports or leisure activities. After all, a pilot license for soaring costs less than a European driving license.”
To get to the airport festival, take the A6 from Kaiserslautern toward Paris and get off at exit No. 9 (Homburg/Bexbach). Turn right and drive about 1.6 miles toward the Stadtmitte. Follow the signs toward the Blumengarten/Grubenmuseum/Limbach. There is a six-story observation tower at the Blumengarten. Turn right after the tower and follow the road to the end. The airport is behind the Blumengarten and camping area.
(Courtesy of Chris Randel)
