Africa Aerospace and Defence 2008 (AAD 2008) – The largest exhibition of Air, Sea and Land equipment on the African Continent.

By Piet van Schalkwyk - I.M.G.

 AAD 2008 was presented at AFB Ysterplaat, Cape Town, South Africa, over the period 17 to 21 September 2008.  This was the second of these huge exhibitions to be held at AFB Ysterplaat, following on from AAD 2006.  The air component of the exhibitions started many years ago as the Aviation Africa exhibition, which was hosted by the Commercial Aviation Association of South Africa.  This was later renamed Aviation Africa International, due to some international participation.  A second organisation, the South African Aerospace, Maritime and Defence related Industries Association (AMD) hosted the South African Air Force (SAAF) 75th anniversary exhibitions at AFB Waterkloof, during 1995, which was a huge success, but also incorporating a large military exhibition.

ChemSpec presents the House of Paint Durban AirShow

The weatherman must be getting old – for the second weekend in succession he did not properly close the door of the freezer. According to members of the Durban Wings Club it was the first weekend in 25 years the airshow did not see perfect weather. For photographers the greyscale Saturday was a nightmare with the sky a gunship grey, which made photography near impossible. The wind was an icy knife throughout the day but normally a high wind sees to a speedy departure of the prevailing cold front. And so it turned out to be as Sunday morning saw brilliant blue skies which lasted the entire day. However the wind remained from the South Pole and picked up quite dramatically to around 12 knots with gusts of up to 16 knots.