On the 25th of August 2011, the Gilze-Rijen Aviation Society organized an spotters day at Gilze Rijen AB, to mark their 25th Anniversary. GRAS promised a great day full of flying from resident and foreign air forces.
And really they surely didn’t disappointed us. Our place of shooting was in the middle of the active runway alongside a small hill. From there we saw a lot of action.
The Royal Netherlands Air Force practiced all day long with their Cougars, Chinooks and Apaches on every corner of the base.
That they enjoyed our visit was noticeable by the really awesome fly-by’s by the crews.
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GRAS also gave this visit an extra boost by inviting several foreign Air Forces. This included a Royal Air Force Tucano turboprop trainer, a Army Air Corps Lynx and Three Heeresflieger Bölkow helicopters.
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Furthermore there were some visits by two A-109’s from the Belgian Army as well as six F-16’s from Belgium, including FA-87 with his special Tiger paint. The Armée de L’air visited with a fly-by by two Mirage 2000’s.
Two Volkel based RNLAF F-16’s also performed some nice fly-by’s and touch & go’s. The fighter part for the day was closed by the fly-by of an Luftwaffe Typhoon.
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But the RNLAF had more great visitors. A KDC-10 and C-130 from Eindhoven AB performed some great fly-by’s, with the C-130 as the winner with his low altitude high speed pass above the runway.
With the addition of the PC-7 and AB-412 fly-by we almost saw every type of aircraft of the RNLAF in one day.
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And what a great day it was. I want to thank the GRAS for organizing this wonderful base visit, and congratulate them with their 25th anniversary. Also I want the RNLAF for making this day possible.
And off course a big thanks to every flying crew on board of the aircrafts for their attendance this day.
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| Some more photos: |
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| Author & photos: Michel Koster |
