Wiederholungskurs Meiringen,  15 March 2007

After a good night rest at our Zimmer Frei in Brientz we woke up and again the weather was awesome! We decided to skip breakfast and drove directly to the airfield where already the first Tigers were taxiing out. We started at Spot 6 again, but as it was still pretty early the position of the sun wasn't that good. Therefore we decided to first drive up the mountain to take some shots from Spot 10.

A few months ago when we first started planning the trip I saw the shots taken by Frank Noort from Spot 10. From that moment, I knew I wanted to go there as well. Despite the good description on the Scramble Airfield Guide we took the wrong road up the mountain. This road ended in lots of snow and from up here we saw the road we had to be on. Anyway, twenty minutes later we were close to Spot 10 where we parked the car in the grass and walked to the edge of the mountain. From here the view on the airfield is really awesome. As you'll see below the shots are not that good, but I didn't want you all to miss the view. After an hour on top of the mountain we drove to the visitor terrace near Spot 5.

After a pretty cool ride down the mountain we went back to the visitor terrace to take some shots of the landing Hornets and departing Tigers. Unfortunately they all taxied back to the caverns via the western taxiway, so no taxi shots this time. This was for us the reason to leave Spot 5 already and drive towards Spot 6 which is located along the western taxiway. Still this is one of the best places to take pictures over here at Flugplatz Meiringen. The first aircraft that came back were the Tigers that left earlier in the afternoon. And as you can see it's possible to take pictures of the jets on the runway as well as taking pictures of them on the western taxiway. Again some Hornets left for an afternoon sortie, and also some of today's visitors left. When we heard some Tigers starting up we decided to drive towards Spot 7 to take pictures of the Tigers taking off.

To take pictures of the Tigers in take off, Spot 7 is absolutely the place to be. What an awesome sight it is to see these nice jets take off together and climb out between the mountains. The Hornets however are already pretty high over here, so it is almost impossible to take good shots of them. Luckily one of them made a nice bank overhead. There is also a nice spot pretty close to Spot 7 where you can take pictures of the aircraft taxiing in. You can even take some nice shots of the jets with snowy mountains on the background. Just walk from Spot 7 towards the rope near the taxi track and see for yourself.

After all the F-5E Tigers were airborne again Mo an I drove back to the visitor terrace again to take some shots of the landing Tigers and some of the Hornets which departed earlier that afternoon. Unfortunately they again taxied in via the western taxiway. But we were very happy with the landing shots we took. The Pilatus PC-7 also made a local flight. The shots of this trainer taxiing on the main ramp were also taken from this spot. So as you can see lots of opportunities over here. You can photograph taxiing, during landing or in take off. What more do you want??

One of the main goals for our trip was to take pictures of the aircraft in the snow. As the weather during our stay was terrific, the only snow we saw was way up the mountain. This made it a challenge to achieve our goal. First we took some shots from Spot 9 where the Tigers taxied via the eastern taxiway towards the main ramp. Unfortunately only two jets departed for another sortie. A small hour later we went back to Spot 7 to take some shots where these jets taxied in. As you can see the sun at that moment was pretty low at the horizon, so we used every last bit of the sunlight.

Later in the evening, around 19.30 o'clock we found a spot to take pictures during night flying operations. This spot is located north of the runway near Spot 7. From here we took some shots of the first wave of four Hornets. Unfortunately there was hardly any light, which made it very hard to take good shots of the aircraft. It was really awesome to see, hear and feel these mighty Hornets get airborne with full afterburners into the night. We already heard the second wave of four Hornets were planned for 9 o'clock, so we didn't wait for them to get airborne.

Around 8 o'clock when all four Hornets were airborne Mo and I decided to leave Meiringen and drive back home. Here we arrived around 3 o'clock in the morning after driving almost 2350 kms in four days. We learned one thing during this trip, never visit a WK during the first week, as the first days they only have academic days. We expected to see a lot more sorties from the Hornets and Tiger, but still I'm pretty happy with the shots I took. After all, we can look back at a pretty successful tour around Switzerland. Leaves me just two more things. I would like to thank Maurice for a wonderful week, as always we had lots of fun. And second thanks a lot for watching these pages, I hope you enjoyed watching all these shots I took during this four day trip.