TLP 2006/03  Florennes AB,  24 May 2006

From may 8th till June 2nd the third Tactical Leadership Program of this year was held at Florennes AB. Main reason to go there this time was the participation of the Hellenic Air Force F-4E's and the Spanish Mirage F.1's. As the TLP-departures were scheduled at 12.30 o'clock local time, my girlfriend Angèl and I departed around 9 o'clock towards Florennes. Two and half hours later we already arrived at Florennes. Because of the high grass along the taxiway it was hard to find a nice place to take pictures of the taxing aircraft. When we finally found a good spot among some other spotters the military police came and send us away. Too bad....so no taxi pictures this time.

As planned the first TLP-jets took off around 12.30 o'clock. Unfortunately two of the Hellenic F-4E's taxied back to the ramp due to a possible ground abort and five RAF Tornadoes didn't leave the ramp at all. Also very disappointing was the fact that we saw only one Spanish Mirage F.1M. When all the participating aircraft of today's mission were finally airborne it started raining so we went back to the car.

The rain lasted only a few minutes but as the weather was very unstable there were lots of clouds in the area during the arrivals. This resulted in some very nice pictures but also some dark and cloudy pictures. After all the TLP aircraft landed we departed towards Brussels-Zaventem Airport, but nothing much was going on out there. Only a USAF C-17A that stayed on the ground for only an hour. Around 20.30 o'clock we arrived back home after driving about 580 kms. Hope you enjoyed watching these shots despite the bad weather throughout the day.                          (Click here for a full log of the day)