The inaugural Kuwait Aviation Show was held in January, and since there are few other opportunities to see aircraft of the Kuwaiti Air Force, IrishAirPics paid a flying visit to the show in the hope of catching some of these rare beasts.

Unfortunately we were only able to visit the show on Saturday, the last day of the event, and by that stage most of the commercial and business aircraft had departed the showground, however, as luck would have it, the military aircraft remained on the static display and they were our main reason for being there.

It had been quite windy earlier in the week, and most of the aircraft were costed with a fine layer of sand, and the sand hung in the air, making the light very hazy, as well as reducing visibility. We were hoping to photograph the Kuwaiti Air Force aircraft flying, but due to the weather conditions the only flying display on the day of our visit was Solo Turk.

Because we arrived at the showground so early in the day (we got straight off an overnight flight and walked from the terminal to the showground), we were on our own for the best part of an hour before other people started arriving, giving us time to photograph the aircraft in peace. Single examples of the following Kuwaiti Air Force aircraft remained on static display:

- Boeing F/A-18 Hornet

- BAE Hawk MK.64

- Shorts Tucano MK.52

- Aerospatiale SA-342K Gazelle

- Boeing AH-64D Longbow Apache

- Sikorsky S-92 (with "State of Kuwait" titles)

- Lockheed Martin KC-130J Hercules

- Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

Also on display at a corporate stand was a model depicting a Eurofighter in Kuwait Air Force colours. Kuwait has 28 aircraft on order, and these are scheduled for delivery in 2020.

Although there was not much in the way of flying during our visit, we at least managed to see some active Kuwaiti Air Force in the flesh, as well as photographing civil aircraft that are not usually seen outside of the Gulf area, including a Mahan Air Airbus A300 from Iran.