It was a busy Wednesday though less missions than the past two days. The time schedule was also a bit unusual.
The Fennec helicopters are the first to leave the base. Take off 9:05, 9:11 and 9:35. All are back around 10:30.
The Mirages come afterwards. The step was at 9:51, startup 9:53 and Mirage 2000C 115-LJ and 115-KC took off at 10:04. They returned to base seperately at 11:02 and 11:14 respectively.
Surprise: at 10:12 green Mirage 2000D 133-XF taxies to the runway and departs for his home base Nancy. (Other spotters had seen it arriving in Orange last Tuesday, August 11th).
At 10:32 QRA becomes active with Mirage 2000C 115-KI. Finally a real armed jet. It returned to base 11:41. Backtracking to the QRA shelter.
The afternoon starts with the Fennecs. The VF takes off 12:27 and two others go together at 12:51. They stay away until 14:45.
At 13:25 three Mirages take off together: 115-OR, 115-KC and 115-LJ. The stay away for a long time; to long if you only have one external tank under your Mirage 2000C.... At 14:40 115-KC announces it is low on fuel and requests to make a direct landing whilst his wingman 115-LJ observes the almost emergency landing from aside and touches down a few minutes later.
Mirage 2000B 115-OR took off with two instead of one drop tank so it could fly longer without problems Landing after initial approach at 14:50.
I left Orange because it seemed thid was it for the day. But later this afternoon at least one Mirage was active in the region (16:52 and 17:00 low over Ruoms).
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