I saw a message on the GEAS-web forum that Eelde expected two Cougars for refuelling 'somewhere in the afternoon'. Since I don't have them all yet and the weather was good, I decided to visit the airport and 'catch me some Cougars'!
Driving on the highway near Assen I noticed the smoke of the heathfire and saw that it was quite close to where I was, so my target changed into: Cougars in action.
Some routes to the area were closed off to normal traffic, so that the farmers tractors with watertanks could use the canal to fill them up.
Luckily other routes were still open, so the following pictures were made at different viewpoints.
01 PH-HZJ came overhead before landing at Eelde as TRA842. The pilots dutyfully reported the fire:
02 Some time later this Cessna-172 circled around for some aerial shots. De helicopters were allready in action then:
03 Wildcat-2 was S-400 today:
04 AS-532UL Cougar S-400 of 300 Squadron KLu:
05 S-400 one more time, now overhead the fire:
06 Wildcat-1 was S-458 today:
07 AS-532UL Cougar S-458 of 300 Squadron KLu:
08 Black (or darkgrey) smoke indicated flaring fire, white smoke often meant firesuppression with water:
Then it was time to go somewhere else, because the helicopters didn't have photographic ideal routes, and I wanted to see if I could get closer to the water pick-up point.
09 Wildcat-two again...:
10 en 11:
12 en 13:
14 From this spot the sunlight on the Cougars was a lot better, again the S-400:
15 And the S-458 again:
Too bad they weren't new airframes for me, but then again... how often do you get the chance to film this?
/reeve.gif)
