Cambrai-Epinoy BA 103 - 22/11/11

[Katabatik]

Knowing that the base will close in July next year and the last Mirages will fly end of march, I decided it was time to visit Cambrai. the date was pinned down this week because we were told that a national exercise was planned (thus more sorties).

I came the night before, slept at a Sebastien's place who lives nearby and we showed up at the South West Corner spot to catch the takeoffs around 8.50. There were lots of ground security patrols walking along the perimeter and they did not look happy to see us standing at the fence with our cameras. We saw them picking their phone and making phone calls. 10 minutes later, two "Gendarmes" (Military Police) asked us to get the hell out of the perimeter and to stay away from the base for the day (and even more --> the week). We were not amused . Trespassing the rules (being caught a second time) would hurt our bank account and ruin our day (going in temp custody), said the MPs. So we decided to go the South East Corner to watch the approaches (lucky us the wind has changed direction). We parked the car a safe distance and when we heard around 11.30 the Mirage coming back, we ran closer to the fence (not as close as we would normally), made the shots, saw the base security patrol calling the MPs and run like crazy to get the hell out of this place. By the time we were back at the car, we saw on the binocular the MPs showing up where we were standing a few minutes ago ... but they could not see us and the shots were made. To play really safe we decided to pull out our flash card, hide them in the car (won't tell you where because they might read this post) and insert new flash cards. We could not repeat this trick (hide and run) because security was everywhere and we had made some decents shots so the rest of the day we decided to watch from a distance (too far for good photo shots).

Moral of the story : do not go to a french Military Airfield if exercises are planned. Photos are forbidden and fence access is prohibited.
Sebastien who is a local and a regular spotter said he has never had problem on ordinary days. These security strict regulations ruined partly our day because most of the shots we made where made from a longer distance --> increasing the croping

Anyway here are the precious pics.:
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[CR-74050]

Was this Cambrai, France or Cambrai, Sovjet Union? Thanks for sharing this war story!

Better luck next time...if there is still one coming...

Cheers, Dick

[jp 74]

Had the same experiance at Nancy, i was removeved by a guard who spoke Dutch, English and German !
You don't see/hear that to often in France!

[Beer Monster]

Very nice indeed. Wish we had light like that we visited Cambraii for the Tiger Meet !