The biennial LIMA exhibition is held at the summer holiday resort island of Langkawi, Malaysia. An excellent event that showcases the current airpower and naval assets of Malaysia. Also, many foreign forces contribute and make this a must-see airshow.

Old and new. The S-61 Nuri transport helicopter has served the Malaysian armed forces well. They are increasingly expensive to maintain and therefore a dozen modern Super Cougars were obtained. They are used for troop and cargo transport as well as combat search and rescue.

Malaysia has a small but very potent fleet of eight F/A-18D strike aircraft. They participated in the air power demonstration.

Diversification is done to prevent being dependent on one supplier. That is why the air superiority role is performed by Russian-made Su-30MKMs. All eighteen are still active and operated by 11 Skuadron from Gong Kedak.

Before climbing into the cockpit of the heavy metal F/A-18D or Su-30MKM, training is needed. Backbone of the training programme is the PC-7 Mark II, recently five more were acquired. Malaysia has used the PC-7 in different variants from February 1983 and with the new Mark II that will be the case for years to come.

The Russian Knights, Russkiye Vityazi, were one of the highlights of the airshow.

Usually, VVIPs are flown in to participate in the seminars or just to network with defence partners. Seen here is an ERJ135LR of the Thai navy.

One of the unique features of LIMA is that it is also a maritime show. Star performer without a doubt, was this CL-415 water bomber showing its low level manoeuvrability and stunning aerial firefighting capabilities.

The sea around Langkawi is dotted with naval vessels, of course the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency's patrol vessel KM Pekan, obtained from the Japanese CG, was shown off. Seen on board here is a MMEA AS365.

The demonstrations were diverse and worth watching. Here fast roping from a Lynx helicopter is shown. With piracy being a huge problem in the waters around Malaysia, having this capability to board ships is essential.

Another way of deploying, is to drop frogmen from low altitude as is demonstrated here by one of the Navy's six AS555SNs. They superseded the venerable Wasp over ten years ago.

Spectacular moves from the state-of-the art A400 transport rounds up our impression of this well organized and exciting venue. We will surely come back to visit Malaysia again!