RAF Mildenhall is home to the 100th Air Refuelling Wing which fly the the Boeing KC-135R & under the command of the 351st Air Refuelling Squadron. On arrival at the operations building of the wing you are greeted with a large sign displaying the initials NKAWTG which means ‘Nobody Kicks Ass Without…

Back in January 2015, in a debate with local residents from Volkel Air Base, Minister of Defence Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert announced her commitment to send a F-35 Lightning II to the Netherlands for so called noise perception flights. One year of planning later the flights took place at the end of…

April 13th gave a rare opportunity to take a ride in the time machine and wander around Volkel airbase, The Netherlands, like it used to be in the '80's and early'90's. At the former 306 Sqn ramp (Safari-park), which has not been used for many years now, 19x F-16 were placed in line for about 200…

It's 5am on a dreary Monday morning more likening to a day in November rather than early July. I was asked to meet at the main gate at RAF Mildenhall home of the 100th Air Refuelling Wing which fly the Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker, on arriving at to the operations building of the 100th ARW, 351st ARS…

In order to add some inflight footage to our E-3A AWACS Operations article, we joined a flight on board Iowa Air National Guard (ANG) KC-135 Stratotanker, out of Geilenkirchen Air Base in the end of March this year. This was possible as the ANG units provide air refueling assets to the NATO E-3A…

Over 3 years of NATO E-3A operations in Afghanistan, in light of ISAF, came to an end when the last E-3A AWACS landed at NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen, Germany on September 25, 2014. It was one of many events for the E-3A Component last year. We visited Geilenkirchen to review 2014 and to look forward…

On October 17, 2014 the Hellenic Air Force (HAF) retired the Vought A-7 Corsair II with a retirement ceremony at Araxos Air Base. The day before the retirement ceremony a spotters- and press day was organised by 336 Mira, the last squadron to operate the type within the HAF. With the HAF being the…

The Heeresfliegerwaffenschule (HFWS) is Germany’s main unit for training the current and future helicopter crew in the German Army (Heeresflieger) and other German armed forces. The training is conducted at two bases; Bückeburg (HQ) and Celle (HFWS-C). HFWS also uses some satellite airfields for…

Anatolian Eagle 2013-2 was held from 10th of June until 21st of June at Konya Air Base. Compared with Frisian Flag and NATO Tiger Meet it was the third large scale exercise in Europe this year. Touchdown Aviation got the great opportunity to visit Konya Air Base to see the Turkish Air Force and…