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Japan Times

ASDF's Blue Impulse set for Osaka Expo performance

The Air Self-Defense Force's Blue Impulse aerobatics team will make a performance flight for the World Exposition in Osaka on its opening day of April 13. "This is a crucial opportunity to show our performance to people around the world," Lt. Col. Suguru Ejiri, who leads the flying team, said in an interview. "We want to make this flight something in which people can feel the themes of the Expo." Blue Impulse flew for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka Prefecture as well, during which the team drew "EXPO 70" in the sky. The team, based in the city of Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, will fly above Osaka for the first time in 35 years, since the International Garden and Greenery Exposition in 1990. For the opening ceremony of that event, Blue Impulse drew an enormous flower with contrails. Ejiri declined to disclose details of the upcoming Osaka Expo performance but said, "We want to make this flight based on the Expo themes of lives, the future and connecting the world." In deciding its performances, Blue Impulse considers requests from organizers and the themes of events. Last March, Blue Impulse aircraft flew in a line just like a train to commemorate the launch of an extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen bullet train line. Capt. Shoya Matsuura, pilot of the third aircraft in the Blue Impulse team, looks forward to flying in his home prefecture of Osaka. He had dreamed of becoming an ASDF pilot while he was still in junior high school. | Jiji The same year, Blue Impulse drew a "grand cross" in the sky above the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki Prefecture, which has a UNESCO World Heritage site related to Christianity. "Our goal is to do a performance that can lead to the success of Expo," Ejiri said. "We want people to look up at the sky so they can have wonderful memories." Capt. Shoya Matsuura, a 30-year-old pilot of the team's third aircraft, is from the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture, where the 1970 Osaka Expo took place. The Expo'70 Commemorative Park, which hosts the Tower of the Sun monument, is located along the route of his regular training runs. He learned about Blue Impulse when he was a junior high school student and became an ASDF pilot in 2018. With stints in Blue Impulse limited to three years, he timed his application to join the team to coincide with this year's expo. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Matsuura said. "I will make all efforts for the flight (performance) to be memorable."