Here’s the response of the Spanish Air Force display team to the Pagani Huayra Tricolore video released for the 60th anniversary of the Frecce Tricolori.
In 2021, the Frecce Tricolori, the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare) display team, turned 60. The milestone was celebrated in several different ways. First of all, the MB-339A/PAN MLU jets of the team were given special tails inspired by the display teams that represented Italy and the Aeronautica Militare in the decade before the Frecce Tricolori were officially established in 1961.
Then, as reported in detail here at The Aviationist, the anniversary was celebrated with a large airshow at the team’s homebase in Rivolto in September, that gathered several participants, including foreign display teams, and featured a pretty interesting COMAO demo.
The 60th anniversary was also celebrated by Italian automaker Pagani, that presented a supercar specially built as a tribute to the Frecce Tricolori display team. Pagani manufactures some of the most epic supercars in the world. In 2010, had already paid tribute to the first 50 years of excellence of the Italian Air Force display team by presenting the Zonda Tricolore, a Hypercar of which only three examples were made. The Zonda Tricolori is still today one of the most exclusive and sought-after Zonda models in circulation.
In 2020, Pagani celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Frecce, with yet another ultra-limited edition model: the Pagani Huayra Tricolore.
Only three Huayra Tricolori (whose base price is 5.5M Euro + VAT) were built. “As a tribute to the Frecce Tricolori and their 60 years of history, each of the three Huayra Tricolore examples bears the iconic numbering that defines the three main leaders of the formation, which usually consists of ten aircraft: Number 0 – Commander: He is the eleventh member of the patrol and directs the display from the ground, as well as all the stages of mission planning and training; Number 1 – Head of Formation: He leads the patrol during all aerobatic manoeuvres. His commands decide the pace of the flight; Number 10 – Soloist: He splits off from the group in the most spectacular sequences. His job is to show the high performance of the aircraft in flight, respecting the entry times between the figures of the formation.”
A cool video featuring both the Frecce Tricolori at work and the new supercar on the runway at Rivolto presented the world the Huayra Tricolore:
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The Spanish Air Force Patrulla Aguila also celebrated the Frecce’s anniversary. After attending the Rivolto airshow in September 2021 (where the Huayra was also displayed) the Spanish team produced also a really funny parody of the Pagani-Frecce Tricolori tribute video. Instead of a supercar, the Spanish clip features a tug shown among several hilarious scenes inspired by the original Frecce footage. Extremely funny and certain a nice way to celebrate the milestone of their Italian friends.
According to our friend Emiliano Guerra who sent the video over to us, the parody was posted on the Patrulla Aguila Instagram feed few days after the celebrations in Rivolto last September, but it was almost immediately pulled. Now it has surfaced again on Youtube and you can watch it here below.
Flying with its seven specially colored CASA C-101 Aviojet (E.25 in the Spanish military designation) trainer aircraft, the Patrulla Águila (Eagle Patrol) was established in 1985 at San Javier Air Base. It is made by flight instructors of the Academia General del Aire (General Air Academy) and is the only team to use yellow smoke, one of the colors of the Spanish flag, during their shows.
