On wednesday the 30th
of july 2008 it finally was to take place after cancellations in the
past. A spottersday was organized by JG71 Richthoven at Wittmund
airforcebase in northern Germany. Early in the morning I left my
home together with Marcel to meet up with our contact on base to get
the oppertunity to photograph the staticdisplay before the big crowd
would arrive at 10 o'clock. The weather was phantastic all day and
at our arrival at 8 in the morning the first way was underway
getting airborne.
After a nice hot cup
of coffee it was time to get to the flightline and get those
phabulous phantoms on my memorycard.No less then 3 specialpaints
were on the flightline and a 4th from Hopsten is preserved in front
of the squadronbuilding so that is a nice score. Also the heritage
aircraft were put outside for us to photograph. just after 40
minutes the first aircraft started to return and we tried our best
to make some pictures of them aswell but unfortunately the sun was
already too high for us to make decent pictures from here.
We decided to spend
the rest of the day outside the fence were you have plenty of nice
photo oppertunities and thanked our man on base and left just after
the first spotters had arrived. All A4's were seen and no less then
4 flew during the day.Only 2 waves were planned for this day with
the second 1 scheduled around noon with latest recovery around half
past 1 around half past 2 the bird from Manching would return home.
Just before start-up they changed runways and we had to race to
catch him but we did. Lucky us!
