Macks Aviation Photography

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03/09/10

Mildenhall continued to be a busy place this week a welcome amount of activity from visitors and locals alike.

With Duxford's Battle of Briatin airshow taking place over the weekend 5th-6th September Mildenhall played host to the Belgium Airforce display team due to operating restrictions in place at Duxford.

The Display Teams ground crew arrived in style on this ERJ135 from 21Smaldeel out of Brussels-Melsbroek Airport

CE-01 ERJ135

With the ground crew safely on the ground the star performers arrived in the shape of two specially painted F-16AM aircraft from 10 Wing at Kliene Brogel.

With Michel Beulen as Solo Display Pilot, the Team enters the second period of 3 years to be flown by the same crew, this time provided by 349 squadron.

Arriving with callsign BAF495A/B they performed a run and break before landing.

FA-110 is the 2010 display aircraft and appears in a colour scheme that makes the eyes water. The aircraft is dubbed "Vortex", indicating the striping that was painted on the wings and fuselage. The design was again realised by Johan Wolfs and Peter Verheyen, thoroughly executed by the KB paintshop.

FA-131 was the display aircraft from around 2007-2009 and is a somewhat muted scheme compared to 2010 but at least they take the time and spend the money on their display aircraft!.

FA-110 departed to Duxford as MACE95 to perform a Practise display before returning once again onto runway11.

F-110 F-16AM	F-110 F-16AM	F-110 F-16AM	F-131 F-16AM
F-131 F-16AM	F-110 F-16AM	F-110 F-16AM	F-110 F-16AM

The USN E6 Mercury was been detached and operating from Mildenhall for several days, see the report from August 28th 2010 to see a PlanePlotter trace of one of its missions over Scotland.

For several days the aircraft had not flown due to a technical fault, on the journey up to Mildenhall RAZZ26 was heard on the radio doing a local shakedown mission before returning to Mildenhall to pick up passengers and departing to pastures new.

162782 E-6B Mercury	162782 E-6B Mercury	162782 E-6B Mercury
162782 E-6B Mercury		162782 E-6B Mercury

Regular visitors at Mildenhall the NATO E-3A's perform all kinds of circuits and whilst getting on a bit now the old smoky engines of this 707 derivative make a welcome change to the cleaner KC-135's based here.

NATO 07 LX-N90442 E-3A NAEWF stayed around a couple of hours and the one shot of her landing with the departing E-6 behind makes for a great shot.

LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A
LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A	LX-N90442 E-3A

LX-N90442 E-3A

A not so common visitor but still an E-3 was SHUCK82 71-1408/OK of the 552ACW which arrived a couple of days previous.

Here she is seen back taxiing all the way from HardStanding 12 down the runway and then taking the underrun on runway11.

Heavy with fuel for her long onward journey down range she them appeared in the overhead before joining controlled airspace.

71-1408/OK E-3B

A week prior to this day two HC-130P from the 23rd Wing routed through Mildenhall for down range. Those aircraft replaced these two similar examples which were now going in the opposite direction back to home base stateside at Moody.

These are quite rare examples as they belong to Air Combat Command (ACC) and not the more normal Air Force Special Operations Command(AFSOC) or Air National Guard (ANG).

Arriving once again on runway 11 the first in brilliant sunshine, sadly the second one not so ten minutes later.

64-14863/FT HC-130P

65-0973/FT HC-130P

Seemingly fresh from the paintshop stateside this Wyoming Air Guard C-130H left Mildenhall having overnighted, sadly not in full sun light like the buildings behind her !

92-1535 C-130H	92-1535 C-130H	92-1535 C-130H
92-1535 C-130H	92-1535 C-130H	92-1535 C-130H

Last notable movement whilst I was at Mildenhall was this C-40A Clipper 165832 of VR58 'Sunseekers' USN arriving with 90 pax as Convoy 4309.

165832 C-40A

Noted today were the following KC-135's from Illinois and Tennessee ANG.

57-1428 KC-135R	59-1466 KC-135R	59-1466 KC-135R	59-1516 KC-135R
59-1516 KC-135R	59-1516 KC-135R	59-1516 KC-135R	59-1505 KC-135R

59-1516 KC-135R

59-1466 KC-135R

The only local movement during the day was QUID98, however, having taxied to hold on 11 the crew found an issue with a pressurization problem on a hatch.

So having called maintenance the aircraft turned about face and taxied to a nearby hardstanding to be fixed.

Some three hours later she finally departed !

61-0306 KC-135R

As already mentioned earlier about Duxford, Mildenhall wasn't the only airfield being used for airshow participants, Cambridge hosted several 'acts' one of those acts were the Patrouille de France which transited high over Mildenhall in very loose formation.

03/09/10

CE-01 ERJ135

F-110 F-16AM

F-110 F-16AM

F-110 F-16AM

F-131 F-16AM

F-131 F-16AM

F-110 F-16AM

F-110 F-16AM

F-110 F-16AM

162782 E-6B Mercury

162782 E-6B Mercury

162782 E-6B Mercury

162782 E-6B Mercury

162782 E-6B Mercury