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Gilze Rijen - 2011
Some visits to Gilze Rijen resulted
in some great pictures of the home based aircraft as well
as some visitors. |
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Steadfast Noon Volkel - 03/10/2011
Exercise Steadfast Noon 2011 is
to train NATO cross servicing crews in loading,unloading and
employing B61 tactical nuclear weapons on several different
NATO partners. The following participants came to Volkel:
Volkel F-16's, Kleine Brogel F-16's, Aviano F-16's, Büchel
Tornado's, Ghedi Tornado's and Balikesir F-16's. Unfortunatly
this day was a non flying day, but luckely the Turkish Delegation
departed back to Turkey including 2 Transall transport planes. |
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Opendagen Leeuwarden part
2 - 16/09/2011
The second part handles some heavy
fighter displays like Finish F/A-18C, Italian EF2000, Polish
Mig 29 and Turkish F-16 Solo Turk. But there were also some
great helicopter displays to be seen like the Dutch Apache
and Brittish Black Cats. Also in the static display there
were some special aircraft which could be photographed very
nice. |
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Opendagen Leeuwarden part
1 - 16/09/2011
On Friday the weather was just
perfect with almost sun from sunrise till sunset. Flying displays
were from high quality. The first part handles about Fouga
Magister, Belgian F-16, A109, Sea King and Red Devils, French
Alpha jet, Brittish Hawk and Team Viper, Italian MB339, Austrian
PC-7 and offcourse the homeplayers: AB412 and the famous airpower
demo. |
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Wittmund - 15/09/2011
The day before the Dutch opendays
in Leeuwarden led us to Friesland already, but then the German
part. There was an excercise going on with Turkish F-16's,
so another reason to visit Wittmund. The main reason offcourse
was the mighty phantoms which haven't got a lot time to fly.
Flying was very good, and the weather wasn't bad eighter. |
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Odiham Families day - 10/08/2011
Bronco Demo Team was invited to
take part to the Odiham familiesdays, and as part of the team
we went along. Weather was just perfect, sunshine all day
long, and not too warm. Flying display was more like an airshow
than a families day. It contained almost all RAF displays
(Chinook offcourse, Apache, Tornado Role demo, Tutor, Tucano,
Beech 200, Hawk, RNHF Sea Fury), but some nice civil displays
too like F-86, B-17, Aerostars, The Blades, O'briens flying
circus, Skyraider, AN-2 and Jet Provost. So a great day spent
in the UK. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Departures
The last gallery of the airshow
is the one from the day the participants has to depart again
unfortunatly. There was a spottersday for the departures and
we were placed very well near the runway. Unfortunatly the
weather wasn't as good anymore as the previous days, but still
nice pictures could be taken. Some participants even did a
favour to the photographers and stayed low after take off. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Flying
display part 3
The last part contains the Thunderbirds,
Patrouille de France and the sunset displays. It was perfect
sunset airshow weather with a great sunset that resulted in
awesome pictures. Sunset items of the show were the Swiss
F-18, Swift team and offcourse the Belgian F-16 display. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Flying
display part 2
The second part shows some items
to celibrate 65 years BAF. There were some types in the display
that used to fly in the BAF as Fouga magister, Hunter, Meteor
and T-6 but also some nice mixed formations as C-130 + DC-3
and F-16 + spittfire. Other displays are Austrian Alouette
III, French Alpha jet, Hawk, QRA intercept, BAF Seaking and
Turkish Stars. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Flying
display part 1
The flying display programe was
from top quality and on Wednesday the weather was perfect.
Here is part one with items like Agusta, Alpha jet smoke pass,
RAF King air 200, Dragon Rapide, Extra 300, F-16 RNLAF, Lancaster,
Red Arrows, Red Devils, Saudi Hawks, The Victors and RAF Tornado
role demo and Tucano |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - OPS
zone
On Thursday morning we had a tour
in the OPS zone. This is the zone where all the aircraft are
parked for the flying display. There were some nice lineups
from the display teams. Luckely the sun came out when we were
with the Czech W3W as this was one of the most special helicopters
in the flying display |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Static
display
In the static display there were
some really gems. The Estonian AN-2 was really something you
never see in this part of Europe. Also the Mi-8 of the Polish
Navy, AN-30 of the Ukraine Air Force were very special birds.
Lets not forget some fighters like 2 Typhoons and some Belgian
special decorated F-16's. Some really nice SAR helicopters
and Alouette III's came to Koksijde to celebrate toghether
with the 40the Sqn |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Rehearsals
Before the show starts, every participant
of the flying display has to rehearsal their display to let
is qualify from the display coordinator. On Monday and Tuesday
there were a lot of rehearsals and great action pictures could
be taken from some displays. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Arrivals
Tuesday
On Tuesday most of the participants
landed again in splendid summer weather conditions. In the
morning RWY11 was in use, but after the rehearsal of the Thunderbirds
they changed to RWY29, so a lot of arrivals were missed because
they didn't used the whole runway lenght. Nevertheless great
pictures could be taken. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Arrivals
Monday
On Monday already a whole lot of
participants arrived. Three teams: Turkish Stars, Saudi Hawks
and the Thunderbirds came straight from Zeltweg and Waddington.
Then the Belgian and Dutch display F-16's also came straight
from Zeltweg. Weather was really perfect as well as the wind,
so RWY11 was in use. |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Support
airplanes
As there were a lot of international
display teams, there were a lot of support aircraft. There
were a lot of special teams, so a lot of first visit transport
planes. We had 3 Turkish C-160's, 2 Saudi C-130's, a Polish
C-130, 3 USAF C-17's. We also had some other support traffic
as well that you can check in the gallery |
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Koksijde airshow 2011 - Historical
BAF airplanes
The Belgian Air Force celebrated
65th anniversary and at the airshow at Koksijde they set up
a great lineup with some BAF Historical airplanes. The S.58
is based at Koksijde. The F-104 and Mirage V are normally
displayed at Evere, but were relocated to Koksijde for the
airshow. The F-16 and CM.170 are so called travel exhibits
and move around all the time. |
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Abingdon - Air and Country
show 08/05/2011
With the Bronco Demo Team we were
welcome to participate in the static display at this little
but great show. Weather turned out to be good. Star of the show
was offcourse the Vulcan... |
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Beauvechain basevisit - 02/05/2011
Gilze Rijen Aviation Society (GRAS)
managed to organise an excellent base visit to Beauvechain.
I was lucky enough to join the group to Belgians biggest airbase
(quantity of aircraft concerned). The weather was perfect with
a clear blue sky all day long, and the marchetti's were flying
very busy. We also got the premiére of the first 4 aircraft
that were repainted in Red Devils colours. As the Bierset agustas
moved in the year before, it was even more interesting to visit
the base. |
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Beauvechain basevisit - W&R
02/05/2011
Beauvechain has a lot of wrecks and
relics all over the airfield, and not only airplanes. Also the
museum has a really nice collection, just a shame that the aircraft
can not be protected to the force of nature when they are exibited
in open air. |
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Preserved aircraft Switserland
- 26-29/04/2011
The history of the Swiss armed forces
is very rich and they are very proud of their history. This
results in preserving and displaying aircraft all over Switserland.
Also the museums are very nice and has great pieces of history.
Here is a selection of the aircraft we crossed on our Switserland
trip |
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Buochs & Emmen - 28 &
29/04/2011
On Thursday we visited Buochs just
after noon in the hope to see some UAE PC-21's, and we were
very lucky. 2 different machines came out to play and taxied
just in front of us in a glorious sunshine. On Friday we went
to Emmen in the afternoon, but no activity there unfortunatly,
only some tigers on the apron. |
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Alpnach - 28 & 29/04/2011
The last two days we spend our time
at Alpnach in the afternoon. There was pretty busy flying there
with 2 German Army CH-53 on TDY, and the EC-635 were training
a lot. Unfortunatly the spottershill was not open but still
great pictures could be taken |
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Meiringen - 28 & 29/04/2011
The last two days of our trip we tried
out Meiringen. Unfortunatly there was very little flying activity
with only 4 hornets in the moring, and 4 in the afternoon. Unlike
previous visits we were only allowed to stand on the visitors
terrace and spottersplace, so not much diferent angles unfortunatly. |
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Sion - 27/04/2011
Our second day in Switserland was
great. Nice weather, great scenery and a lot of flying activity
of the mighty tigers at Sion. We tried as much as possible different
angles and this is the result. |
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Payerne - 26/04/2011
Our first day in Switzerland was a
quiet one. We saw 4 hornets flying, a PC-6 making a lot of touch
and go's, a QRA intercept of 2 Meiringen hornets on the Falcon
50 and a PC-7. They also towed both special painted hornets
from a shelter to the boxes. |
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Ramstein - 25/04/2011
On our way to Switzerland we stopped
at Ramstein in the afternoon. Weather was perfect on this Eastern
Monday, as was the traffic: C-5, C-17, C-130J, C-21, C-26 and
KC-135. A nice mix of American hardware made this a nice day |
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Lombardsijde - week 14/2011
At the military shooting range of
Lombardsijde there were 2 Belgian Agusta helicopters based for
shooting excercises from Monday till Thursday. Here is a photographical
report |
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Cambrai - 31/03/2011
EWAS gave us the chance to visit Mirage
2000 base Cambrai. The basevisit was really great and we could
almost do everything we asked. Unfortunatly the weather that
day was heavy clouded, but still nice pictures could be taken.
Thanks to EWAS and Cambrai for the very nice visit. |
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Reims - 22/03/2011
Day 2 was just great. A lot of flying
activity and perfect weather conditions. We photographed again
from 2 different spots, to have some variation in the pictures |
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Reims - 21/03/2011
For one of the last times we went
back to Reims in hope to have some F-1 action before its closed.
We stayed about 3 hours in the morning and we had some activity,
but not as much as normal due to the Libia actions. Still very
nice pictures could be taken. |
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St Dizier - 21/03/2011
The 3rd day of the Libia operations
lead us to St Dizier for an afternoon of spotting at this nice
rafalebase. We saw 2 rafales returning in the evening from a
6h mission to Libia, very heavely loaded. Also a lot of transportplanes
that day... |
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Kleine Brogel - 03/03/2011
With the main runway in use again
after 9 months of works, flying activity was very good at KB.
In the afternoon there was even a practice display from Mitch
Beulen with the Vortex... |
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Reims & Cambrai
- 17/02/2011
Good weatherpredictions leaded us
to Reims, but once arrived there, it was a lot less worse than
they predicted. Though there was some flying activty of the
local Mirage F-1's. In the afternoon we went to Cambrai where
we saw some Mirage 2000's and a Mirage F-1 from Reims performing
6 touch and go's... |
