Koksijde 2010

Koksijde : January - March

January and February were very calm months with no visiting aircraft touching the ground of Koksijde in January... Luckily March was a lot better with a lot of British visitors. The 8th of March was really a busy day. Three Defence Helicopter School Squirrels refuelled at Koksijde en-route to Gütersloh in Germany. They came back two days later. On the 8th, five different Lynx AH.7's took some gas as well. On the 18th and 25th of March respectively four and two French Alpha Jets made some IFR approaches. On the 28th of March, MD900 G-11 from the Police Air Support Unit had to make a landing in a field next to the highway in Veurne with a technical issue. A second MD900 came with technicians and spares to fix the helicopter.

Koksijde : April

The 6th of April brought us the Special painted Marchetti to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Marchetti in Belgium. On the 8th a C-130 made some practice approaches. From the 21th of April four B-Hunter UAV's were based at Koksijde again for pollution control flights over the sea. On the 22th a Netherlands Air Force Chinook based at Gilze Rijen made a night stop and departed back home the day after.

Koksijde : May

On the 5th, two British Lynx AH.7's refuelled at Koksijde during their navigation flight to Germany. They returned 2 days later. On the 7th, Cobham Flight Precision came with their Beech King Air 200 to calibrate the TACAN and PAR. On the 10th and the 11th two Mirage F-1CR's based at Reims flew over the airfield during a recce mission. On the 12th three Gilze Rijen based Cougars made a lunch stop at Koksijde. On the 25th three Danish Air Force Fennics refuelled coming from Volkel in the Netherlands. They returned on the 27th en-route to Eindhoven.

Koksijde : June - July

June was again a very calm month, July luckily not. From the 10th of July till the 15th of August one MD900 from the Police Air Support Unit was detached at Koksijde for surveillance flights at the coast during the busy touristic season. On the 15th a Netherlands Air Force Cougar and two Apaches refuelled on their way to Fairford for the RIAT. Also a German CH-53G came in for gas on their way to this airshow. The day after early in the morning a very special Danish Air Force visitor made a quick landing on the SAR platform to drop off some people of a ship. It was a Super Lynx MK.90 from Karup! Some hours later a German Navy Sea King MK.41 refuelled on its way to RIAT in Fairford. They came back with the same helicopter later in the month on their way to and from the Weston-Super-Mare heli days.

Koksijde : August

On the 5th of August, 2 Reims based French Air Force Mirage F-1CR passed over Koksijde again during a recce mission! On the 18th, two Danish Air Force Merlin MK.512 arrived for a deployment of 3 days. It was very nice to see local missions of these two great helicopters. On the 19th a Royal Air Force Puma came in for fuel.

Koksijde : September - October

In September the 80 Sqn UAV based at Florennes came back with their B-Hunter UAV's for a deployment. On the 21th of September 4 Reims based Mirage F-1CT's flew over Koksijde during a navigation mission. On the 12th of October three British Lynx AH.7's from Middle Wallop refuelled again at Koksijde during their navigation training in Germany. On the 28th and 29th the famous air-to-air photographer Katsuhiko Tokunaga did a photo flight out of a Marchetti from an Alpha Jet and another Marchetti. The Marchetti made a night stop at Koksijde and the second day they did a photo-shoot with a Sea King and the demo F-16.

Koksijde : November - December

On the 4th of November one C-130 made some approaches and afterwards they joined up with 2 other C-130's for a 3-ship formation. This was probably again a photo shoot with air-to-air photographer Katsuhiko Tokunaga. In December there was again some more F-16 activity. On the 13th of December Marchetti ST32 in Hardship Red colour scheme visited Koksijde with some approaches and a full stop landing, this all in excellent weather conditions.

SAR-meet

Each year, one of the European SAR-units organises a SAR-meet, and this time it was the 40th Sqn at Koksijde which organised this famous exercise. This year's edition of the SAR-meet was organised from the 17th till the 21st of May and was really a large exercise. Not less than 8 teams of 7 different countries participated in this yearly exercise/competition. The Netherlands sent an AB-412SP from the 303 Sqn in Leeuwarden. Germany sent a Sea King MK.41 from MFG-5 in Kiel. France came with a SA.330B Puma from EH01.067 Pyrénées based at Cazaux. The Spanish came with a SA.330J Puma from 801 Esc based at Mallorca. Italy participated with a HH-3F from 83° Centro CSAR based at Cervia. And the most special participant was a Mi-8RL from the Polish Air Force. This special helicopter is part of 2.eltl based at Kraków. All the crews arrived on Monday. On Tuesday a navigation exercise was being held and on Wednesday there was a precision winching exercise. After the exercise a large formation was formed to end the exercise. On Thursday social activities were organised and on Friday every left home again.

Sea King - 2010

This is a selection of pictures taken in 2010 of the Sea King MK.48 of the 40th Sqn based at Koksijde. These pictures were made during normal training missions at Koksijde and surroundings.