How, when you start displaying warbirds, do you stand out from the crowd? Maybe you buy an aircraft that's unique, or an example that's somehow unusual. What's perhaps more challenging, if you've got the resources to own and operate such a machine, is to fly it in a distinctive way. After all, there's only so much you can do safely with an historic aeroplane, if you don't want to risk pushing the limits. But there are ways of bringing to warbird flying a particular individual style, maybe born of personal preference, perhaps of particular expertise. Competition aerobatics can help provide that, as well as other useful attributes. That very exacting form of flying was the route Frederic Akary took into the scene, helping him add his own special touch to the presentation of three very different types. First there was a Hawker Fury, then a North American P-51D Mustang, and now a Canadair Sabre, all operated by his Mistral Warbirds stable at Avignon. When watching the Mustang, French airshow commentator Bernard Chabbert often said Fred's were the most beautiful demonstrations of the type. Fred modestly disputes this, but many observers would agree there was something exceptional about the precision of his piston-engined fighter aerobatics.
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