Finally, some action!

[Rambler 1-1]

You guys who live around military bases are no doubt used to seeing the more common military jets droning around, but way up here we get next to no non-civil traffic. The snowbirds come through about once a year, we get a PC-9 trainer a couple times a year, and very rarely a CF-188 shows up. The usual fare is a lot of 737s, Dash-8s, Cessnas, and the occasional 727.

 

So you can imagine the shock I went into today when I heard the whistle and whine of four P&W JT-3 engines and looked up to see a big 707-307C with full flap on, smoking like a chimney, going right over the city on approach to our humble little runway 34.

 

You can imagine again the shock when it went over again, slower and lower on another approach.

 

By the fourth fly-by, it was starting to lose it's luster, but I pulled over to take a good look, and saw, on the side in big letters, NATO*OTAN.

 

I rode out to the airport with all speed, and pulled up to the flying club just as the big sucker came to a stop. It was a real NATO plane, a lowly cargo and training 707, but a NATO plane nonetheless.

 

after me a little crowd formed, and we watched as the ground guys tried to adjust the Air Canada offloading ramp to level with the door. One of the pilots, a Turkish Major, I kid you not, came out to talk with us civilians. The plane was from Geilenkirchen air base, just east of Cologne, and they had just flown up from New Orleans and were heading off to Cold Lake in a couple days. They had about half a dozen pilots on board, and each one had flown an approach, hence all the fly-bys.

 

It many not be that exciting to most of you guys, but this was a serious event for us, because it was the first time that a proper 4-engined jet landed at our airport AND the first NATO plane that had ever landed there. The guy beside me took some pictures with his cell phone, and I had him email them to me for proof of this somewhat historic event.

 

Taxiing in...

 

Parked

 

and offloading.

 

Exciting, huh?

[+Typhoid]

cool!

 

Those planes are in the NATO AEW Force at Geilenkirken and do the logistic support for NATO E-3 deployments.