Paris Air Show 25 Jun 2023

Today (25 Jun 2023) was a good and bad day to visit a fabulous air show. The sky was clear today, meaning the sun was grilling the skin. Today is probably the hottest day in Paris in the past two weeks, with the temperature at 16:00 reaching 35 degrees C.

My favourite performances were those of jet fighters, such as those by Dassault and F-16. Since I watched the first air show of armed aircraft on Swansea Beach in July 2017, I have always been enthralled by the thundering sound of jet engines on the fighters. It was partially because of my study at university and my current profession. A more notable reason was: Those who always vow to conquer the world on the Internet, e.g. the ultra-nationalists in Russia and the loyalists to the Chinese Communist Party, should come to hear the sound of a jet fighter. If one is frightening enough to them, then I bet they will escape their motherlands when there are hundreds of these flying over their cities and villages.

Another unusual scenario was the “armed force education” to kids and the openness to the public. Visitors queued to board an Dassault Mirage 2000 there and a soldier explained the technical details on the dashboard. Kids had the chance to play with the machine gun on an armed helicopter and to learn how to use it.

Witnessing these cases, I think governments like China, Russia and North Korea should ask themselves a question: Why don’t these European and American armed forces worry about “leaking confidential information” about their top weapons?

I lingered for three hours outside pavilions for the air performances and jet fighters parked in the venue. Also, I visited a 1969 Boeing 747, part of which was dissected to show the internal structures to tourists.

When I returned to the pavilion Hall 2B, a startup instantly got my attention. The engineers in that startup are developing a plasma-powered jet engine for future aircraft, which will achieve zero carbon emissions! I chatted for a while with a company representative about the technical and scientific foundations and the future of liquid hydrogen (we both denounced a little bit about the latter). We also criticised the road-blocking climate extremists—they forced people to abandon what they have by damaging innocent people and artworks, but never invented any new accessible technologies for the public!

The jazz bands in pavilions provided natural background music for visitors. The shining spot was the end of the day: a samba band parade sending visitors to the exit!