Ascua: the story of the first official aerobatic patrol of the Spanish Air Force

It all began in 1956, when four North American F-86 Sabre fighters from the 1st Fighter Wing of the Air Force were returning to Manises Air Base in Valencia.

The HA-1112 Buchón fighter on display at a Michigan museum with its Spanish roundels
KC-97 Stratotanker, the first military aerial refueling aircraft that Spain had

As the Spanish Air Force reported yesterday in a Twitter thread, on January 24 of that year, Lieutenant Maura, pilot of one of those four planes, which were returning in formation, proposed doing a looping or curl, then another and then a roll. Thus came about the Ascua Patrol, which was the first official acrobatic patrol of the Air Force, initially made up of four planes, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Hevia and Lieutenants Maura, Álvarez de la Vega and Salazar Cútoli. Its first official exhibition was in Barcelona on September 30, 1956, during the Merced festivities and on the occasion of the inauguration of the new runway at El Prat Airport.

That display in Barcelona was a success and made them the official patrol of the Air Force. In 1957, the patrol, still without a name, received its first decoration with flames on the tail and on the nose. The curious name of "Ascua" was chosen on October 7, 1958, after the death in an accident of Captain Berriatúa during patrol training. Berriatúa's radio call sign was "Ascua," and his companions chose that name for the patrol as a tribute to him. Paradoxically, shortly after being named, the patrol entered a period of inactivity that would last until its reorganization in 1961.

In 1961, the Ascua planes received their second decoration, with large red flames bordered in yellow on the fuselage and tail. In 1962, the decoration was changed, with a ray painted on a red background with the colours of the National Flag on the tail. All of this always with the large San Andrés cross that the F-86F wore. On January 12, 1965, the Ascua Patrol made its last display in Manises. The reorganization of the Air Force and the separation of Squadrons 11 and 12 made it impossible to maintain it. In its brief history, the patrol made a total of 68 displays, 40 in its first period and 28 in the second.

It took 20 years for the Air Force to have an official aerobatic patrol again. As he recalled yesterday on Twitter, with the entry into service of the Spanish training jet CASA C-101 Aviojet at the General Air Academy in San Javier (Murcia) and at the Matacán Schools Group (GRUEMA, in Salamanca), two aerobatic patrols were formed: the Águila, in San Javier, and the Amigo, in Matacán (today, "Amigo" remains the radio call sign for GRUEMA). Finally, the Águila Patrol, formed in 1985, became the official fixed-wing aerobatic patrol of the Air Force, a position it continues to hold today. It should be added that although Ascua was the first official patrol of the Air Force, there were others at the time. The first of these emerged in 1954 at the Matacán Air Base, and there were two more at the Talavera La Real and Los Llanos air bases.

You can see here a video that the Air Force has published today with footage preserved by its Historical and Cultural Service, in which we see images of the Spanish F-86 Sabre and the Ascua Patrol: