Take a look at these jaw-dropping photos of a U.S. B-52, F-22s and French jets over Paris western suburbs

April 20, 2016 Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

The 100th anniversary of the Lafayette Escadrille flyover from a different point of view.

As already explained, on Apr. 20, one B-52, four F-22 Raptor fighters (from their deployment base at RAF Lakenheath), three FAF Mirage 2000Ns and one FAF Rafale performed flyovers during the ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Lafayette Escadrille’s formation.

F-22 over Lafayette

The aircraft flew over the memorial in Marnes-la-Coquette, in the western suburbs of Paris, France, that celebrates all 269 American pilots who flew with the French Air Force as part of the larger Lafayette Flying Corps before and during WWI.

Here are some more interesting photographs released by the French Air Force.

French fighters over Lafayette

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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9 Comments

  1. Hi USAisROME ! I’m french and I really love the Rafale. Nevertheless, the Rafale is definitly not “so superior” to the F-22. The F-22 has lot of many high-end features the Rafale doesn’t have… For example, the F-22’s curves permits a much better “radar stealth” ability than our Rafale. Indeed, a lot of fellow citizen in France think that our Rafale is the best fighter jet in the world nowadays… But they didn’t study scrupulously what you have, there in USA !

  2. it is spelled RAFALE. And Rafale is better in dogfight/close combat than F22 but because F22 can shoot anything for much further away, it won’t get in close combat, hence your comment has not point. And btw Rome ended badly ;-)

    • “Rafale is better in dogfight/close combat than F22”

      > is that your “professional” assumption?

      • not sure about F-22 vs Rafale. They are certainly much more closely matched than in BVR. typhoon is better than Rafale though in dogfight

    • yeah I got ambushed, and yeah they were wrong, because they just vote for their country (which is admirable) but ignore the reality

      • Don’t you also just vote for your country? Does your pride not come in the way of rationality sometimes? A negative answer to this would be most dubious, considering your username.

  4. Don’t worry, French guys will only need to mention how much more awesome a B-52 looks like when you fly it over Paris. Problem solved.

  5. The fly overs made the ceremony for America’s first combat aviators at the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial exceptional!

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