KLu Opendays  Volkel AB,  14/15 June 2007

The first openday at Volkel I went to was in 1989. This was only my second openday ever. During the last two opendays at Volkel in 2000 and 2004 I worked for Air Traffic Control at Volkel AB, so I had probably one of the best seats to see the show. At first I planned to visit this years opendays from thursday till saturday. However we had to move into our new house and had to do a lot of work out there so I only had a few hours time this year.

Thursday morning I drove from our new house in Uden towards Volkel AB and was very surprised to see the spottersplace was open for public. This made it a lot easier to take some shots of the arriving aircraft. One of the highlights of this years event was the new Hungarian Gripen which made it's first appearance in Holland. After it's arrival I went back home to do some work. Around three o'clock I went back to Volkel as I knew the other highlight of this years opendays was about to arrive, the Su-22 Fitter of the Polish Air Force Base Świdwin. Unfortunately the weather didn't work out a nice as I hoped for which made it sometimes hard to take good shots.

The next day I had to work again in our new house, so I didn't had much time to visit the opendays again.  However around 14.30 I decided to go to Volkel for a quick stop. I was pretty lucky to park the car very close to the entrance so I had only a two minute walk. Unfortunately during the 90 minutes I visited this years opendays I didn't see the sun. Despite that I was able to take some shots of the static which are worth sharing.

On the picture on the right you see one of the other highlights. Although it is not an operational Hunter anymore, this jet really stole the show. I think the painters did a great job and it looks great in this old RNLAF color scheme.

Below you'll find some more shots I took during my short stay at the openday on Friday. I didn't see much of the flying display so unfortunately not as much action shots as normally. Despite that I hope you'll enjoy watching these shots.

(Click here for a small log of what I noted during both visits)