USAF F-35A Lightning II Demo Team
Bagotville International Air Show/ Spectacle aérien internationale de
Bagotville 2024
Canadian Forces Base Bagotville (CYBG)
Saguenay, Quebec
Saturday, June 22, 2024

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Bagotville International Air Show of 2024!

Presenting the United States Air Force F-35A Lightning II Demo Team all the way from 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The team this year has two Canadian shows on their schedule, one being here in Bagotville, the other at the Cold Lake Air Show held at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Cold Lake in Cold Lake, Alberta. Ironically, both these shows are located on bases where the McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet's are stationed at. Meaning this is a little teaser of what is to come since the Royal Canadian Air Force does have the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II on delivery to replace the aging Hornets, with the first batch expected to come through in 2026. Although we don't know which base will be getting the first few jets delivered, one thing is for certain is that this year will likely be the last for the Bagotville and Cold Lake shows as security is expected to increase a tenfold upon delivery of these new fighter jets.

The pilot for this years demonstration is Capt. Melanie 'MACH' Kluesner on her first season with the team. She is an experienced fighter pilot with more than 800 flying hours in the F-16C Fighting Falcon, F-35B, and F-35A Lightning II. For the demo you will notice that instead of a Hill Air Force Base bird (HL) tail code they are flying a (VT) Vermont Air National Guard bird. This is done by the Demo Team to preserve wear and tear on the aircraft, instead of flying with the main demo bird all throughout North America for the airshow season, they take the geographically closest located squadron's F-35 and use it for the demo. The demonstration for today was a high show consisting of some of the traditional maneuvers such as 'minimum radius turn, square loop, high speed pass and Lightning loop'. As this was the show closer, 'MACH' made sure to give us two incredible 'tactical pitch' passes before landing and closing the show!

All the best and enjoy the video! :)

© Ernest Gutschik Aviation 2024

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