Luchtmachtdagen Day 2,  20 June 2009

The second show day of the Luchtmachtdagen at Volkel AB was also spent together with the family. We decided not to go too early, as we took our son Damian with us again. We arrived at Volkel AB around noon again, but this time we didn't had to take shots of the static display.

We first tried our luck halfway the runway hoping to take some shots of the explosions during the airpower display, but again we had some bad luck as some aircraft were parked right in front of it. Again the airpower display was pretty impressive, but unfortunately the weather wasn't as good as we hoped for. This made it sometimes very hard to take good shots.

At the end of the airpower display we witnessed a very rare sight, as a KLM Boeing 737 in a nice retro color scheme made a fly-by together with eight F-16s. Too bad, the sun was behind a very big cloud at that moment, which resulted in a few very grey pictures. The airpower display was followed by the take off of the mighty Vulcan, and luckily we had a very nice and sunny moment.

The Vulcan first did a few passes over the field and was later joined by the Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16 solo display, flown by Ralph Aarts, and the Hunter of the Dutch Hunter Historic Flight. This again was a very special moment of course, but again the sun didn't cooperate.

After the Vulcan landed at again both the F-16 solo display and the Hunter each performed a nice show. This was followed by again a very impressive display of the Spanish Air Force EF-18A Hornet. Luckily I was able to take some very nice shots of this jet during the five days I spent at Volkel.

Another highlight of the Luchtmachtdagen at Volkel AB was the Italian Navy NH90 which arrived on Friday after participating in the Paris Airshow at Le Bourget. It still wore it's display code H27 on the side of the helicopter. The display wasn't very special, but it is always nice to see what kind of helicopter the Dutch Armed Forces will receive in the near future. After the awesome display of the MiG-29 we decided to leave as we didn't want we wait for the Turkish Stars. However we really enjoyed their show during our walk back.