The five Spanish Pilatus PC-21 aircraft of the Formación Mirlo seen up close

Yesterday, the Spanish Air Force's Formación Mirlo (Blackbird Formation) made its debut at the October 12 air parade in Madrid.

The aircraft that could not fly in the Spanish National Day air parade
The PC-21 aircraft of the Formación Mirlo are now creating smoke trails with the Spanish Flag

In the Spanish National Holiday parade, and as you were able to read in advance in Defense and Aviation, the Formación Mirlo took over from the Eagle Patrol in the passes, emitting smoke trails in the colors of the Spanish Flag, both in the tribute to those who gave their lives for Spain and in the final part of the air parade. Unfortunately, the weather conditions were not ideal and the colors appeared somewhat dull.

Yesterday, a few hours after the parade, the Youtube channel Fly By Wire Aviation (which I recommend you subscribe to if you are interested in aeronautical matters) published an excellent video showing up close the five Pilatus PC-21s of the Formación Mirlo at the Getafe Air Base, before and after the official events on October 12 (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see some screenshots from this video here with some interesting details. First of all, we can see an image that refutes the "avionnette" classification that some make of a turboprop aircraft like the PC-21. It is an aircraft in which its pilots fly with HGU-55 helmets (the same ones used by Spanish EF-18M fighter pilots), sitting on Martin Baker Mk.16 ejection seats (the same model used by fighters like the F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale) and with detonating cord on the cockpit (in the image it can be seen over the front seat) to facilitate ejection.

Here we see one of the Sanders Smoke Technologies SCSG-5 smoke generators. The PC-21s in the Blackbird Formation carry two, one under each wing. A few days ago I already told you here about the characteristics of these generators, which supplement the capacity that the C-101 Aviojets of the Patrulla Águila had to generate these trails with their turbofan engines.

Another interesting detail of the video is that we see the five PC-21s of the Formación Mirlo take off, land and taxi in formation, a custom that the Eagle Patrol pilots already had.

In addition, the Fly By Wire Aviation video allows us to distinguish the registration numbers and numerals of the Formación Mirlo aircraft:

• E.27-17 792-17 (leader)
• E.27-18 792-18
• E.27-19 792-19
• E.27-20 792-20
• E.27-25 792-25

Congratulations to the Formación Mirlo pilots on this debut, and my best wishes to them and the new unit for the future. I hope we can see them under clearer skies next time.