TLP 2007/05  Florennes AB,  19 October 2007

Already for the third time this year I went to Florennes for a TLP exercise. At 9 o'clock in the morning I picked up my travel partners Niels Hoogenboom and Mike Schoenmaker. Three hours later we arrived at Florennes where the first TLP participants started to taxi out. Unfortunately the sun disappeared and more clouds came in during the departures. 

When all the participants were airborne we walked back along the fence where we waited for the arrivals. Halfway we saw the guys from the fire department installing the arrestor cable on the eastern side of the runway. We thought they were changing runways so walked back to the car. Five minutes later two Phantoms appeared on the horizon. One of them was flying on only one engine and with its tail hook down. Unfortunately we were not in the best position to take shots of this cable engagement. The cable engagement of the Phantom damaged the arrestor system which caused a little delay. Despite that all the aircraft landed safely at Florennes. Around four o'clock we left Florennes and drove via Brussels back home.  (Click here for a log)