Gilze-Rijen was not really a spotters heaven in the early days of Dutch Spotting… Sometimes practice approaches by KLu F104’s and NF5’s and when you were lucky a Navy Atlantic. Residents like the S11’s en L21’s all operated within the aerodromes boundaries. But when 316SQ arrived here in 1972, more and more enthusiasts (many from Eindhoven) were claiming their photo spot near the Langenbergseweg for ultimate landing shots. Hair-raising situations took place when traffic on that road did not stop for the red traffic lights! Regularly evasive actions had to be taken by the pilots to avoid collisions with crossing cars and trucks. Not many foreign visitors found their way to Gilze-Rijen in the beginning of the seventies. The base got more and more operational and had to be trained for the NATO TACEVAL’s. That included the familiarisation of the cross-servicing and fire brigade in order to handle all kinds of aircraft types for a quick turnaround such as fuel, oxygen and weaponry. Normally they came in via a normal flight plan, but also unexpectedly the so called AMPLE TRAIN flights. For aircraft from abroad the MP and Customs were always informed and most of the time they checked passports and cargo and stayed around toooo long to my opinion because I was planning ON BASE SHOOTING…
Thursday 17th May 1973 was such a trainings event: RF4E 35+70, Mirage 5’s BA43, 57 and BR05, Canadian CF104D 104656 and Harrier XW916. Underlined could not be shot unfortunately.
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wow, great pictures! That's 5 years before I started spotting and I already feel old 
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