1990

In 1990 I visited Volkel AB for the very first time during standard operational hours. There I saw twin-tailed aircraft going take-off. Of course at first i thought these to be F14 Tomcats since I knew the movie Top Gun! But after researching I found them also not to be F15's - but Canadian CF18's from Baden Sollingen! I was most intrigued.

Hence forward I started to look more closely if I saw anything flying over my house different than an F16. And this was the case. This year I also went to Volkel AB to see a squadron rotation of Canadian CF18's. And a rotation of Holloman AFB USAF F15 Eagles! - as i recall correctly these were on temporary duty at Gilze Rijen but overflew my house many times and also visited Volkel AB.

I also noticed almost daily RAF Tornado's flying over my hometown of Grave from east to west of vice versa. These were Tornado's of Bruggen and Laarbruch based units just over the border into Germany. At the end of 1990 these flights intensified. The 1st gulf war in Iraq was coming. During those months flights of up to 7 Tornado's passed my house on a regular basis from west to east, most of the time fairly low level.

Other interesting facts of these years were the massive amount of dogfights over my house in Grave. Mostly F16 against F16, but also many times F15's against F16's - F16's always won close quarters. I could follow the fights very closely with binoculars. Sometimes these were DACT missions; uneven numbers against each other. F16's of Volkel AB also made practice intercepts on USAF C5 Galaxy's and C141 Starlifters which were passing from southeast to northwest going from/ to CONUS - Ramstein AB.

Other types passing my house/ and or seen at Volkel AB were Dutch NF5's, F27's, P3 Orions, SH14 Lynxes, Alouette III's, PC7's, Bo105's. Foreign types were German F4F's, British Tornados''s, British Gazelles

 

*1990 MFO Sinai (Israel)

*Soesterberg AB F27 base visit and flying