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.
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
