The Virtual Snowbirds have accepted an invitation for a new airshow on the 2012 calender.

The Virtual United Air Festival which will be held Oct 20-21, 2012.

The team is very excited to show the community our latest show for the 2012 season.

This morning, the first of the 6 new Tutor training aircraft arrived here at Moosejaw.  These birds look pretty sweet and the training team is all excited to start putting them through their paces.

The Virtual Snowbirds have had the good fortune to have two members of  the Canadian Forces officially join our team this week.

MWO Steve “Talon” McRae, and Lt(N) Michael “Beannie” Bennett.

Both Talon and Beannie bring a wealth of knowledge of the real life workings of the Canadian Forces which we feel will bring a sense of  greater realism to the team.  Welcome guys!

We also had a long time founding member return to the team this week.

Jim “Rotorblade” Macius.

Rotorblade will be flying lead for the Virtual Snowbirds for the 2012 show season.

We all consider Rotorblade one of the core men of the group and I know he is very excited to be back in the Tutor once again.  Welcome back Jim.

Another new development on tap for the 2012 season is the formation of the FIS Vikings training wing.  From here, pilots in training will learn the basic fundamentals of formation flying, with the goal of earning a position on the Virtual Snowbirds show team.  With the knowledge that our new Forces officers bring to the team, this training should be the toughest training to date.

The Virtual Snowbirds have now completed their 2011 season and are already looking ahead and planning for a very exciting 2012 season.

The team will be adding a new dimension to our 2012 show and that is the addition of the Canadian Forces CF-18 Hornet Flight Demonstration. This demonstration of raw CF-18 power will be our new opening act for the 2012 Virtual Snowbirds Demonstration.

We feel very honored to have our latest addition to the team MWO Steve “Talon” McRae piloting this sleek aircraft.  Steve is a current serving member of the Canadian Forces which make this demo even more special.

The team designers are busy at this time stripping off the 2011 demo colors and re-painting the aircraft with the new 2012 paint theme.  Our head modeler Racer is also working on a new CF-18 Hornet model which should be ready for the coming show season.

Below is a taste of the new theme for 2012.  We are all looking forward to a great demo from Steve this coming year and from what we have seen so far in practice, you will not be disappointed.