1970s Mil Collection

[Soesterberg1954]

Thanks Gerrit amazing and great you want to share it

[GerritsFinest]

some shots at Leeuwarden airbase a day before the Open House. No people, beautiful Frisian weather what do you want more...

[GerritsFinest]

and some random shots 1977

[GerritsFinest]

After six years shooting outside base I joined the Air Force mid 1971 and started my trainging in ATC! Wow jet soud around all day! Still many T33's and 315Sq NF5A/B with the regular 'High Flights' deliveries from Canada non stop across the ocean to Twenthe. Switching between Tower, Base Ops (flight planning), Approach control and FLB ( flight line bunker) later called LCB (local control bunker).
For photogaphy the last one was excellent, a small glas bunker with your head just looking over the grass... binocular, radio's on and being very busy logging the type, callsign, take off/landing time/total flying time and especially for the T33's training squadron the amount of touch and go's... It was Ii fact a 'last chance check' in case of no wheels on final. Sometimes they checked you out: on the final base turn they selected wheels up on purpose... on downwind the wheels were allready down, paying less attention to the aircraft. Shooting your first red flare was very extiting I can tell you! Thums up from a smiling pilot who made an overshoot because of you...
Small windows could be opened in front (runway side) and to the back the taxi track, excellent for 135mm on my Pentax both sides! At the beginning of rwy 24 was the cross servicing called Big Move, all the jet visitors were parked over there. Atfer my duty in the morning I Always made a short visit there you can imaging!

[Hans van Herk]

Great set of photos and with your context given it is even greater.
Thanks.

[Jonathan]

Awesome pics again Gerrit! Active Belgian Streaks, wow!
Keep them coming!
Jonathan

[CBR]

Great pics from a long gone Era. It hurts a little ...

[Bennie]

Great pics from a long gone Era. It hurts a little ...

I'd call this remark the understatement of the millennium!

[GerritsFinest]

You can imaging that shooting from the large ATC-tower was quite a challenge for me... my superiors first looked suspicious, but later on the laughed about this (enthousiastic) colleque who even came in is duty off period to the tower to take shots... On my green military bicycle I explored the base in every corner..
The French T-bird blew its tire while braking and ended in the grass north side and of rwy 24! Was tugged out, no damage ! Those were the days!

[GerritsFinest]

Just imagine five Vulcans starting up for a scramble in front of your nose... it just happened 47 years ago at RAF Wildenrath. Not a regular visitor on the continent except for the larger airshows in the 70ties. Here some impressions...

[GerritsFinest]

can you find the Vulcan between the litter at the end of the day...

[bvdboomen]

Nice update with the Vulcans Gerrit.
When I was a little boy in the 70's I encountered this plane a lot at airshows on Keiheuvel. My family called the bird "vleermuis", so for me it also became the "vleermuis", not knowing that it actually was the Vulcan. So my entire life upon 2009, I didn't know that I actually saw the Vulcan before when I first saw the XH558 at Volkel. It is since I've shown my family the photos of that show that I know that "vleermuis" is the Vulcan because my eldest sister said "Hey! De vleermuis!" when she saw the photo of the Vulcan.

[Javindo50]

Very nice contributions Gerrit, thanks for sharing pics from your time machine!