SHOOTING ON BASE-Gilze-Rijen 7ties, 8ties...

[GerritsFinest]

During the squadron rotation which lasted until the 19th , limited visitors were allowed unfortunately, some light stuff was noted:
Tuesday 11 September 1973: SF260 ST29
Wednesday 12 September 1973: UH1’s MLD 225V and 226K with their rotor sound, the best there is!
During October, November and December the invasion of Spanish AF Azor’s and C54, see these movements in my topic “Ammo flights” at this site (http://forum.scramble.nl/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=110824 ) Also mentioned there was the belly crash of the K3071, the next day it was transported to the hangar on a deep loader, most of the damage was on the left-hand side.
Tuesday 9 October 1973: T33 BAF FT34 made an overshoot
Wednesday 23 October 1973: Two Marine F104G’s 2109 and 2122 of MFG2 and Piper R167.

[GerritsFinest]

As said before the era of the Fokker S11 Instructor came to an end. The pictures were taken just before 11 of them came airborne for a farewell flight to KLu airbases. Sept the 10th the E6, E9 and E14 made the very last flight during an official ceremony.

[GerritsFinest]

and the other six as well...

[GerritsFinest]

Two formation photos of the 11 ship farewell flight

and fortunately RAF Phantoms found their way to the base beginning November 1973:
1 November 1973: FGR2 XT914 and XV501 of nr 14 SQ
28 November 1973: CF104 104810 in snowy conditions! And new decals!

[Stephan Lodewijks]

I'm curious about your new post, but I don't see any pics?

Steef

[GerritsFinest]

These shots are the last one's for 1973, I hope you liked them. This report is far from complete of course, but anyhow it gives you a impression what was going on in the South!

[Maurice]

Marvelous Gerrit, thanks for sharing!

[GerritsFinest]

One question remains: The c/n of Mir3E 13-QF, who knows? thanks in advance, Gerrit

[bvdboomen]

Gerrit, I just discovered this topic. Very nice to see my home base in those days.
Please, do keep 'm coming.

[AirRep]

very nice picture!!!!
great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GerritsFinest]

Very little is written about activities on the South Light Aircraft Strip (LAS) at Gilze-Rijen. This grass area situated in the far south easterly corner of the airfield, between runway 02 and the wooded area. It was controlled separately from the main ATC-tower by a mobile tower with call sign “Sierra Control”, coming from ‘S’outh (Sierra in NATO alphabet).
On this main grass the Fokker S-11’s en Piper Cubs often operated here during their ‘summer camps’. Some concrete or brick hardstands were used to park the S11. Every day the crew of the Sierra ATC unit had to construct the strip for the flying activities, decide in which direction the strip should be flown depending the expected average wind direction. The T-shaped strip was about 300 meters long and was marked with orange markers. For instance the left part of the T for the non-radio Pipers in a left-hand circuit and the right hand circuit on the right-hand side of the T for the S11’s. Interesting was that we still used the old fashioned signalling lamps (red-grn-wht) to communicate with the Piper pilots what could lead to quite some busy operations. The S11 were allowed to cross the main runway to the north only after coordination with the tower, but the non-radio Pipers had to proceed in special lanes at very low level through the control zone.
Nowadays nothing remembers this to this interesting era, large shelter areas were built there including a taxi track south of runway 28… come and see some pictures I took on the quiet periods!

[Bennie]

These shots are the last one's for 1973, I hope you liked them. This report is far from complete of course, but anyhow it gives you a impression what was going on in the South!

Snow in November!!! Don't think we'll see that happening again!!

[GerritsFinest]

Sometimes you have to do serious digging in your collection. There I found two additions for the 1973 shooting: a nice camo CT133 133393 on 29th of may 1973 and Super Nice L21B Super Cub R137 on 28 November 1973. In the background the old WW2 control tower, the red-ylo flag indicating the tower is manned and operational. With this a/c I made many midweek trips back home to Ermelo, landing at Soesterberg. One of the pilots lived at Soest, next day returning to Gilze just before lunch so being nicely on time for the afternoon duty, those were the days!

[Key]

Gerrit,

You are building highly interesting historical documents here, so great to marvel at the photos and read the stories. And your appreciation for what you have been able to do is the icing on the cake. Thanks very much for all of this.

BTW, I passed on the correction of the NF-5 crash date to our crash db editor.


Erik

[GerritsFinest]

Some pictures made in 1973 show the S-11 flightline, on the bricks in front of the large yellow hangar. Best time to look was during lunch time, camera equipped with the in those years popular 135 mm lens. Walk in between the hangars so nobody saw you coming, shooting and going! The dayglow-nosed Pipers Cubs were parked there too. Always checking your serial list first which registration was missing. Then hit hard and get out… Luckily most of the KLu-Pipers were already in my collection starting from the mid-sixties. Even these orange noses regularly visited the light aircraft strip behind the General Spoor Barracks in Ermelo, no problems taken pictures overthere. So why to run an extra risk on the flightline…