Le Bourget, France —Under dark gray and rainy skies, the 49th Paris Air Show got underway here Monday, featuring aggressive, under-the-cloud-deck flying demonstrations by the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, and Lockheed Martin F-16. Also flying were Lockheed’s C-130J and Alenia Aeronautica’s C-27 Spartan, a number of jet trainers and helicopters, the Airbus A380 in Korean Airlines livery, and the hybrid Eurocopter X-3, which has both five-bladed turboprops on wingtips and a rotor. Some 340,000 visitors, about half of them trade attendees, are expected at the biennial event northeast of the City of Light.
This week’s revelation that the Air Force had designated its first uncrewed fighters set the stage for the makers of the two aircraft to talk about the logistics of deploying them to dispersed locations.