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.
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