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steelflanker

Great pics from the 80’s at Soesterberg AB

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Just stumbled upon this yesterday! :yikes:

A most impressive collection of pics taken of Cold War aircraft during the early to late 80’s.

There are some rare paint jobs & art work among them & fans of the Strike Fighters series should realy enjoy most of the shots.

 

Apologies if this is old news or the link has been posted before but I had to share.

 

http://forum.scramble.nl/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=29261&sid=40020076aa123d3b30f421bc3c7604fc

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That's a great link, thanks. I was a little disappointed when the early pages were full of bandwidth overruns, but the thread gets good real quick.

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Well, 72 pages full of good old Soesterberg, the place where our airforce was born in 1913 and our main pre war airfield. The Germans build it into a really big airbase in WW II...... My grandparents lived nearby, took me there in the '50's as a little boy, I saw the Meteors, even a dual(!) Spifire of 322 Sq, the first F86F's of 32 Sq. Later the KLu Hunters and F86K's, the 32Sq "Wolfhounds" F 100C's, F102's (including the dual), the F4E''s and finally the F15's.....At that time it was a helicopter base too, with the first Chinooks we got and of course the 334Sq F27 Troopships.. Saw a lot of fantastic airshows there, had a trip in an F27, visited the base on other occasions as a member of the Dutch Airforce Association (KNVOL) etc.

Andy Bush flew F4E's from there and Veltro 2000 served at the 32 Sq avionics shop. Those were the days........

Right now it is closed but for a great part still intact, including the main runway, which cannot be removed because of the special biotope it creates (!!). Lots of wildlife and birds. Some shelters are being demolished, some buildings at the Camp New Amsterdam part still in military use, the US alert hangars, the tower, dispersal area's are still there and in the seven still available T2 hangars (brought in from Scotland when the base was rebuild from the Luftwaffe ruins of WW II) they are planning the Dutch Defence Museum (airforce and army). And of course the Airforce Memorial with the names of all pilots who were killed since 1913 is still there...

No housing or any other projects allowed, just aviation and military history. A beautiful place it still is and that is what it will always be...... :salute:

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Amazing find! :good:

Thanky for sharing!

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