Thx Spotterwilliam for the heads up! Rotterdam Port area Waalhaven 5 and 6 is mentioned which confirms the same location as last time, which is not Europoort by the way.
We can expect activities at Eindhoven and Rotterdam-Waalhaven from March 15th according to a news article on defensie.nl.
Wie de komende weken een Amerikaanse Black Hawk-transporthelikopter boven Nederland spot, hoeft niet verbaasd te zijn. Tot eind april verplaatst een helikopterbrigade met 54 toestellen via Nederland terug naar de Verenigde Staten. Naast Black Hawks, vliegen er Chinook-transporthelikopters en Apache-gevechtshelikopters van Vliegbasis Eindhoven naar Rotterdam. Ook gaan er zo’n 1.200 voertuigen en containers, voornamelijk over de weg, naar de havenstad.
De helikopters vliegen tussen 15 maart en uiterlijk 6 april op weekdagen in groepjes naar Rotterdam. Daar wordt alles ingescheept voor de verdere reis naar de thuisbasis in de staat Kentucky. Op de bijvoegde infographic is te zien welke route ze ongeveer nemen.
Is it an option to split this into two topics. One for 1st CAB inbound to Europe via France/ Greece, and one topic for 101st outbound Europe via Eindhoven/ Rotterdam?
Pieter,
a well-informed source gives the number of 34 helo's transferring through the port of Rotterdam (and Eindhoven Airbase), the other 40-odd transiting out through the Greek port of Alexandroupoli.
On the 101CAB Facebook page you can see posts of 1-101 (from Greece) and 5-101 AVN *(from Romania) packing up at Alexandropoulos. 6-101 is apparently in Germany. I also see mention of 5-101AHB being stationed at Incirlik in Turkey, but not clear to me if these are actually there permanently or also part of the rotation.
At least 11 Apaches and 23 Black Hawks have already been loaded aboard the Endurance in Greece, which makes at least 34 (could even be more) helicopters already on board.
Thus, considering 77 were deployed in total, 34 via Eindhoven to Rotterdam may be correct (54 being not possible).
GIPS wrote: ↑15 Mar 2021, 14:03
Just a check flight
93-26519 UH-60L is on its way - near Frankfurt, westbound; news from Germany 6 x UH-60 & 5 x AH-64
(20648 is up again around Illesheim, so poss. check flight for that UH-60...)