2013 Volkel air show

The annual 'Open Dag' (open house) of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (KLu) was once again held at Volkel air base. This year the topic was 100 years of military aviation in the Netherlands. Military contemporary highlights were the A-7E (in full special c/s) and TA-7C Corsair of the Greek Air Force (HAF) and the Estonian AF delegation consisting of a L-39C and An-2. Many other air forces send some really interesting aircraft and helo's.

The heritage aircraft were also numerous: among these a Lim-2 (MiG-15, in former Polish AF c/s), a Sk60E (in former Swedish AF F5 c/s) and an AB-204B Huey (as '227' of 7sq Dutch Marine). Supplemented by a B-25N Mitchel, Spitfire LF.IXc, DH82A, AT-16ND, P-51D Mustang, Auster 5, O-2A Birddog, Anson C21, Chipmunk T10, Hunter T8C, CM170R, Dominie 1 and many more! 

 

The flying program of a Dutch air force air show is alway very good - as was 2013. 'Native' KLu aircraft stole the show with demo AH-64D Apache and F-16 performing a flying display - also in close formation! F-16's performed a mass flypast and low level base attack with pyrotechnics on the ground, while air force CH-47D Chinooks, AS532 Cougars executed droppings and airlift of equipment. A C-130H Hercules and KDC-10 were also incorporated into the fly by.

Many other military aircraft performed aerial demo'sm like the Austrian PC-7, French Mirage 2000N, Polish Su-22M-4 Fitters, Finnish FA-18C Hornet, Czech JAS-39C Gripen, Turkish F-16C, Belgian F-16A,  Meteor T-7, Hunter F6A and AJS-37 Viggen.

Monday after the airshow I witnessed the two Greek A-7's flying a couple of (high) circuits over my howetown of Grave and over Volkel air base (visible from Grave). I made a photograph of them passing by and one of the pilots posted a selfie (Volkel air base visible in the background) on facebook - as can be seen below. A nice departure of their visit!