But in the following days (from the 19th 'till the 23rd) I could swear I heard some overshoots/t&g's (after all it turned out the to be the arrival of some MiG-21's). Things changed on Wednesday 24th August. Here's a list of what I saw (and photographed - still working on the pictures though, and I need to register first on some sort of photosite...also: I decided to bring only my small lense with me to the spotting spots as to look as a 'tourist', well, for spot 2 my 18-135IS lense was quite enough; some shots are at 80-100mm digital and I think that's OK...)
Wednesday 24th August 2011
Round 1: MiG-21bis 115 t/o 9:30 - landing 10:07 (preceeded by 3 t/g's)
Round 2: MiG-21bis 115 t/o 11:00 - landing 11:30 (preceeded by 1 t/g)
Thursday 25th August 2011
Round 1: MiG-21bis 115 t/o 8:00 - lnd 8:33
Round 2: MiG-21bis 116 t/o 9:15 - lnd 9:36 (1 t/g - it kept flying south of the rwy performing sharp turns and loopings with AB!)
MiG-21bis 115 t/o 9:17 - lnd 9:45
Round 3: MiG-21UM 165 s/c t/o 10:10 - lnd 10:42 (1 t/g)
MiG-21bis 115 t/o 10:19 - lnd 11:00
Friday 26th August 2011
Arrival of MiG-21UM 167 at 12:03 preceeded by 1 t/g.
As my holiday home was very close to runway 27 I could observe nearly all take-offs. Therefore I had enough time to make it to runway 09 where all MiG's landed. Only the MiG-21UM 167 was too fast for me: I could only catch it from spot 1 (parking lot: see airfield guide). All other Mig's I have photographed from spot 2. Only once a police-van passed by, but it didn't even bother to stop. I found the security was very mild, but maybe I was just lucky. I didn't hide (or 'hit and run'), so it must have been clearly visible what I did there. I felt so 'safe' that I even filmed some taxying to the start at the crashgate near spot 2. Parking the car there is possible at the dirt-path, parrallel to the road where the road to crashgate ends. The police saw my car there, and myself in the meadow opposite, but near the center-line of the runway.
Does anyone have similar experiences?
Does anyone know if i'm thinking correctly the MiG-21's were resuming their missions from Pula as the tourist season was ending? Or were they just deployed elsewhere?
All the best,
Rob.
