Calgary’s Wings Over Springbank Airshow showcases the best pilots from North America

Look up, way up, and you are going to see some of the best pilots around performing in Calgary skies.

The Wings Over Springbank Airshow is back this year.

The aviation showcase is set for July 23 and 24 at the Springbank Airport after it was canceled in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The airshow, which happens every other year, brings North America’s top pilots to Southern Alberta, including The Canadian Forces Snowbirds and the newly formed Northern Stars.

“It’s a three-year hiatus for us so it was one extra year longer than usual. But just with the uncertainty that was in the summer events, we had to make the choice last summer to pause it for a year,” said Sarah van Gilst, Events Producer and Chairman of Wings Over Springbank Airshow.

“But the response we have had coming back has been so exhilarating for us.”

van Gilst says they are back to their full version for the airshow.

And van Gilst adds the venue for the airshow is a big field that can host more than 10,000 people a day.

The airshow features many World War 2 aircrafts, joined by the Skyhawks demonstration team, the Snowbirds, civilian aerobatic performers, and more.

They even have a special event that includes a three-ship formation led by a trio of Snow Birds.

“We are having all three of our military teams this year. We do have the Skyhawks, the F-18 as well as the Snow Birds this year so we haven’t had all of those guys since 2015,” said van Gilst.

The pilots are hoping to try out various formations during this year’s airshow.

“The actual team has been around for 3 or 4 years led by Brent Handy. He’s been doing the air show circuit as a solo performer for about nine years and this is our first year expanding it to a three-plane team,” said Greg Hume-Powell, Northern Stars Number 3 Wingman.

“So the team itself does about a 15-minute show where it’s a lot of precision formation aerobatics and some exciting solo aerobatics down to the surface with tumbles and all sorts of stuff.”

The pilots did a wide variety of stunts as shown in their demonstration for CityNews.

“Some of the maneuvers we did we took off in a trail formation, we joined up in a Vic formation which is like a V-formation and we did some maneuvers up and down,” said Hume-Powell.

Read More:

• Wings Over Springbank Airshow returns west of Calgary in July

• Wings Over Springbank Airshow returns west of Calgary in July

• Technical issue temporarily grounds CF Snowbirds from flight performances

Major Steve Hurlbut is Snow Bird Number 9, says they are always in training mode wanting to perfect the show and fix little mistakes.

“The training is very challenging even now when we’re on the circuit we’re still kind of in training mode. We always want to perfect the show and there are always little mistakes to fix so every flight is a learning flight for us,” said Hurlbut.

“But we like doing the solo maneuvering. We like being off on our own. That’s kind of our happy zone when the formation splits up and we get to take the line,” he adds.

Captain Jesse Haggart-Smith is a CF18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Airforce and is part of civilian aerobatic performers.

“They did a pretty good job of reflecting the fighter pilot role and the fighter pilot lifestyle to a certain degree,” said Haggart-Smith.

A portion of the proceeds from the airshow event are also donated to local charities and their organization is powered by volunteers including the organizing committee.

“We are a nonprofit. Our goal is to always make some money that we can always give back to the community to local charities. It is pretty much 100 per cent volunteer-driven,” said van Gilst.

“And this year we’re hoping to give money to Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (ARCS) which is near and dear to my heart so I’m really looking forward to being able to support them.”

“In the last show we donated to Wellspring and with each show, we look at a local charity we can make an impact to.”

The show runs from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. this weekend you can go to their website for tickets.

We had a great day at the Wings Over Springbank Airshow yesterday! Look for us to hit the skies around 1:25pm this afternoon for today's performance. We will signing autographs following our performance beside the CF-18 in the static display area. #CF18Demo
???? Patrick Cardinal pic.twitter.com/HS8QLAVYcp

— CF-18 Demo Team (@CF18Demo) July 24, 2022

–with files from Danina Falkenberg and Adeline Gladu