Seven years after Touchdown Aviation's first visit to Axalp Fliegerschiessen, it was time to go back to the annual live fire demonstration of the Swiss Air Force. The event heavily depends on weather circumstances; two years ago the author had climbed to the top only to hear the event was cancelled…

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…

The 2015 edition of the European Air-to-Air Refuelling Training took place at Eindhoven Airbase for two weeks in April and supported Frisian Flag. The emphasis was again to work from a DOB in a multinational environment. It even was more prominent in this year’s training since additionally to last…

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…

From the 31st of March until the 18th of April 2014, exercise Green Shield 2014 was hosted at Base Aérienne (BA) 133 Nancy Ochey located in the north east of France. This year saw the fourth edition of the exercise between the Armée de l’air and the Royal Saudi Air Force called Green Shield. On the…

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…