The Frecce Tricolori, officially known as the 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico, Pattuglia Acrobatica Nazionale (PAN) Frecce Tricolori, is the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force. Based at Rivolto Air Base, province of Udine, it was created on 1 March 1961 as a permanent group for the training of Air Force pilots in air acrobatics.
Patrulla Águila, formed 4 July 1985, is the aerobatic demonstration team of the Spanish Air and Space Force. It is based at San Javier Air Base at the location of the academy of officers of the Spanish Air and Space Force, near Mar Menor and La Manga, in the Murcia region of Spain. Flying seven Casa C-101 Aviojets, they are the only team to use yellow smoke and are also known for their formation landings.
The Russian Knights is an aerobatic demonstration team of the Russian Air Force. Originally formed on April 5, 1991 at the Kubinka Air Base as a team of six Sukhoi Su-27s, the team was the first to perform outside the Soviet Union in September 1991 when they toured the United Kingdom. On December 12, 1995, disaster struck as three team jets flew in-formation into a mountainside near Cam Ranh, Vietnam during approach while en route to home from a Malaysian airshow during adverse weather conditions. The team now performs with eight Su-30SM.
A colonel in the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, is the most senior field-grade military officer rank, immediately above the rank of lieutenant colonel and just below the rank of brigadier general. Colonel is equivalent to the naval rank of captain in the other uniformed services. By law, an officer previously required at least 22 years of cumulative service and a minimum of three years as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted to colonel. With the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, military services now have the authorization to directly commission new officers up to the rank of colonel. The pay grade for colonel is O-6.
Sergey Stanislavovich Rakhmanin is a Russian powered and glider aerobatic pilot and flight instructor.
The Battle for Height 776, part of the larger Battle of Ulus-Kert, was an engagement in the Second Chechen War that took place during fighting for control of the Argun River gorge in the highland Shatoysky District of central Chechnya, between the villages of Ulus-Kert and Selmentauzen.
Sepahbod Nader Jahanbani was an Iranian general, distinguished fighter pilot of Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) and the deputy chief of the IIAF under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Despite being executed in 1979 by Islamic Revolutionaries, he is widely lauded as the "father of the Iranian Air Force" along with General Mohammad Khatami and General Amir Hossein Rabii, for modernizing the air force to become a potent and powerful force whose advanced equipment and training they acquired for Iran, such as the F-14 Tomcat, would save Iran's crucial infrastructure during the Iran–Iraq War. He was the leader of the Golden Crown, the first and national aerobatics display Iranian team. He is nicknamed the "blue eyed general of Iran". By many accounts, he is considered one of the best and most capable pilots of his time.
The Russian census identified that there were more than 5,864,000 Ukrainians living in Russia in 2015, representing over 4.01% of the total population of the Russian Federation and comprising the eighth-largest ethnic group. On 2022 February there were roughly 2.8 million Ukrainians who fled to Russia.
Lloyd W. "Fig" Newton is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) four-star general who served as Commander, Air Education and Training Command (COMAETC) from 1997 to 2000. He was also the first African-American pilot in the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.
The PAF Blue Diamonds is the national aerobatic team of the Philippine Air Force (PAF). Assigned to the 5th Fighter Wing, the unit is based at Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga. Founded in 1952, the Blue Diamonds is one of oldest formal flying aerobatic teams in the world, along with United States Air Force Thunderbirds founded in 1953, the United States Navy Blue Angels formed in 1946, and the Patrouille de France of the French Air Force formed in 1931. The Blue Diamonds has been inactive since 2005.
The Niš incident was a friendly fire incident during World War II involving United States and Soviet forces. Taking place on 7 November 1944, the incident began when United States Army Air Forces fighters strafed a Red Army vehicle column near Niš, Yugoslavia, which resulted in an air battle over the area between American and responding Soviet Air Force fighters. More than thirty Red Army soldiers were killed on the ground. Two American P-38 Lightning and two Soviet Yak-9 fighters were shot down in the air battle, and a third Yak-9 fell to Soviet antiaircraft fire. Due to the death of Red Army general Grigory Kotov in the American attack, the incident caused diplomatic uproar, which was resolved when Soviet officials accepted the American explanation that the attack was a mistake caused by navigational error. Despite the official Soviet conclusion, postwar memoirs claimed that the American attack was intentional.
The Flying Lions Aerobatic Team is a South African formation aerobatic team. They fly a four-ship aerobatic display using North American Harvard aircraft. The team operates five aircraft but only uses four in their display, leaving the fifth to be used as a backup. The Flying Lions have been in operation since 1999 when Arnie Meneghelli acquired the Harvard aircraft that the South African Air Force was decommissioning. The Flying Lions participate at many major airshows around South Africa during the airshow season.
The 2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade was a parade that took place in Red Square in Moscow on 9 May 2015 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. The annual parade marks the Allied victory in the Second World War at the Eastern Front, on the same day as the signing of the German act of capitulation to the Allies in Berlin, at midnight of 9 May 1945. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin delivered his twelfth holiday address to the nation on this day, right after the parade inspection that was presided by Minister of Defense General of the Army Sergey Shoygu.
Bidar Air Force Station,, is a flight training establishment of the Indian Air Force. It was founded during World War II and has been a training center for Indian Air Force pilots since 1963. Trainer aircraft like the HAL HT-2 and variants of HAL HJT-16 Kiran have been used at the airbase for nearly four decades. In 2011, the station was remodeled and refurbished, with the runway extended to 9000 feet and new facilities for aircraft engine maintenance and testing added.
The Berkuts are a Soviet and later Russian aerobatic performance demonstrator team connected with the Russian Air Force.
The 2016 Moscow Victory Day Parade was a military parade that took place in Red Square in Moscow on 9 May 2016 to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. The annual parade marks the Allied victory in World War II at the Eastern Front, on the same day as the signing of the German act of capitulation to the Allies in Berlin, at midnight of 9 May 1945. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin delivered his thirteenth holiday address to the nation on this day, right after the parade inspection that had presided over by Minister of Defense General of the Army Sergey Shoygu and led by the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, Colonel General Oleg Salyukov. This was the second consecutive parade that included a moment of silence.
Nikolay Timofeyevich Antoshkin was a Mokshan Russian Air Force colonel general, Hero of the Soviet Union and politician. Born in 1942 in Bashkortostan, Antoshkin was drafted into the Soviet Army in August 1961. After graduating from military aviation school, he served with reconnaissance aviation units. He became commander of the Air Force of the 20th Guards Army in May 1980. After graduation from the Military Academy of the General Staff, Antoshkin became commander of the Air Force and deputy commander of the Central Group of Forces.
Lieutenant Colonel Cristian A. Bolton is a Chilean aviator and former fighter pilot in the Chilean Air Force. He was a competitor and instructor in aerobatics, most notably in the Red Bull Air Race. He is Latin America's leading aerobatic pilot.
Nikolai Ivanovich Moskvitelev was an officer of the Soviet Armed Forces, having served in Soviet Naval Aviation and the Soviet Air Defence Forces, rising to the rank of Colonel General and the position of commander of the Air Defence Forces' aviation component.
This is the order of battle for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It should not be considered completely up to date nor accurate, being based on open-source press reporting.
Russian Federation 
