Wiederholungskurs 2009
Meiringen Air Base, Switzerland
Due to all kinds of reasons, I never succeeded getting to Switzerland for spotting. Every time I wanted to go, I needed to postponed Switzerland for some reason. But finally, for the first time in my life, I went to Switzerland after an invitation to join on a trip. The early returning wiederholungskurs (rehearsal course) was held at Meiringen airbase. During this course, reserve military personal need to maintain their skills and many (flying) activities take place on and around Meiringen airbase. I did not wanted to postpone it again, so I decided right away that I would like to join. After setting up some arrangements, I finally was able to get to Switzerland.
Meiringen is such a beautiful airbase to stand at, because if offers so many photo opportunities around the entire airbase. If you stand along side the taxi track, runway or even from on top of the mountains, in every direction you have a clear view on the aircrafts on base. You can easily walk along the taxi track, and you can even cross the runway with your car. When there are aircrafts departing, a primary road that runs straight across the airbase is closed temporally with barriers, and the aircrafts will come across the road. The primary road make part of the taxi track and runway, it's a really weird view for the first time. The hole day I was amazed by the way things are going, and the close range I was standing towards the aircrafts. With 4 waves a day containing at least 10 aircrafts that is really awesome! I did not stay at Meiringen the entire week, because there are several airbases in the vicinity that we also visited. Monday the entire day, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday night and the entire Friday I spent around Meiringen trying all kinds of different spots to photograph from. I even went into the mountains with Martijn to do some shooting from on top downwards on to the base.
