The Rotores de Portugal (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

for "Rotors of Portugal") is a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

flight demonstration team created in 1976, operated by Squadron 552 () of the

Portuguese Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = 1 July , equipment = , equipment_label ...

, based in No 11 Air Base, Beja. They are the national helicopter display team of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

and use three

Sud Aviation Alouette III Sud or SUD may refer to: Places * Sud (Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg constituency), a constituency in Luxembourg * Sud (department), an administrative subdivision of Haiti * Sud Department (Ivory Coast), defunct administrative subdivision of ...

. In 1976, the aerobatic team Rotores de Portugal was created by order of the Air Force Chief of Staff (CEMFA) to represent the Portuguese Air Force in several

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

s all over the country. The team operated for 18 years while integrated with the 102 Squadron, and flew a total of 41 demonstrations. On the fifty-third anniversary of the Air Force, in 2005, the were reactivated as part of the 552 Squadron, based at Beja Air Base. By that time, a special colourful livery was applied to the helicopters operated by the , which included the national colours and the name of the team. As these helicopters were not exclusively used by the team, it started to be a common sight to see Alouette III sporting the special livery while performing the most varied missions, from search and rescue to airmobile assaults exercises. Even after the suspension of the activity, these helicopters continued to sport their respective livery. The last performing of the occurred in 2010, with the team being currently inactive. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Air Force initiated the deactivation of their remaining Alouette III helicopters, which are being replaced by a smaller number of

AgustaWestland AW119 Koala The AgustaWestland AW119 Koala, produced by Leonardo since 2016, is an eight-seat utility helicopter powered by a single turboshaft engine produced for the civil market. Introduced as the Agusta A119 Koala prior to the Agusta-Westland merger, i ...

.Walkarounds - Rotores de Portugal
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Aircraft, bases and squadrons

References

External links

''Rotores de Portugal'' website
{{Modern aerobatic teams Aerobatic teams Portuguese Air Force

Aircraft, bases and squadrons

See also

References

External links