White Out Ops & Confined @Sunset; AS532 Cougar Wildcat 62 & 63, GLV-V Low Level

[Redskin301]

Last Tuesday, February 9, I had some old-fashioned luck. I was on my way home after a nice day in Maastricht with snow. Driving home and between Eindhoven and Oirschot I ended up in a traffic jam! It was now half past four, so everyone wanted to go home at that time. Fortunately, the people of the Royal Netherlands Air Force not yet, because they could finally fly after a day of frustration of clearing platforms from from at Gilze-Rijen Air Base. Two Cougars arrived and followed the A58 motor way from Gilze-Rijen to the GLV-V. I was just at the exit Oirschot in that traffic jam, therefore I set my mind on zero and immediately took the exit. Five minutes later I arrived at the rear heath of the GLV-V area. I just walk down the heath about 300 meters from my car, and suddenly a Cougar landed 50 meters away from me. Therefore this was a case of 100% luck, because many friends of mine had waited all day in vain at the GLV-V. I thought, at least I already have one of the Cougars, because the Wildcat 62 (S-444) made three landings next to me. The second Cougar was busy on the front area of the heath, playing in the sand, but I thought that was too far to walk for now (20 minute walk). After more than 20 minutes, both helicopters decided to swap terrain. Now the Wildcat 63 (S-456) entered the heath where I was positioned. This pilot decided to do some confined exercises, very cool, because I had never seen this before on the Oirschotse Heide. This crew liked to play ball as well, because the pilot saw me from the air and then decided to land up to three times on the path between the trees on the east side of this area. The helicopter was almost parked against the cycle path and I felt it had only 5 meters of space left for the rotor blades between the trees. This was really cool to see. After landing when the snow clouds cleared, I could indeed see he didn't have much more space. It was a moment of luck and that exactly at the golden hour during a snowy season day, I couldn't have done better. After more than one hour both helicopters went RTB to Gilze-Rijen. All in all a great ending to a great day !!!