Departures,  21 June 2009

The first aircraft already departed from Volkel on Saturday after the show. Unfortunately the Polish Fulcrum was one of them. However a lot of nice aircraft planned their departure on Sunday.

As I still have a lot of friends working at Air Traffic Control at Volkel AB I contacted them to catch a nice spot close to the runway. Just before the first departures I was escorted to a spot in between both runways. The first to depart was the Italian Navy NH90, which also lifted a lot of grass into the air.

The next aircraft to depart was the L-39 of the Slovak Air Force. Followed by a very spectacular take off of the Polish C-295 which banked halfway the runway to the south. Unfortunately the French Mirage 2000D departed under cloudy conditions which made it pretty hard to take a good shot of this dark colored aircraft.

Just like the French Mirage, the Slovak An-26 stayed pretty low during departure which resulted in a few very nice shots. This time in nice sunny conditions.

Another highlight of the Sunday departures was the take off of both French Alpha Jets. The first one first stayed low and pulled back the stick right in front of me. The second Alpha Jet stayed low till the end of the runway. The most impressive take off award goes to: The mighty Avro Vulcan! Damn, what a nice sight it is to see (and feel) this awesome jet take off from very close by.

A big thanks goes out to my colleagues of Air Traffic Control Volkel for bringing me to this great spot along the runway.