It seems like there was a NATO summit or something like this, as I saw a lot of very uncommon traffic. My personal highlight was US Army C-12C with serial 83-0497. It belongs to the US Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. It was almost dark, when the Swiss Air Force Cessna 560 T-784 came in. Also a new one to me. Cool variety!
I heard that one of the two operational Open Skies OC-135B with serial 61-2670 arrived Ramstein July 17, 2015. I spent almost the whole following sunday, July 19, 2015 at the fence and waited for the possible departure of this beauty. Unfortunately it did not happen as I wished. Some friends told me, that she departed wednesday to an unknown eastern destination. Today, I had plenty of luck...
After I caught my first MFO UH-60 in November 2014, I got another chance this week. This time it was a bit more difficult. The approach was very high and far away. Although I have 400mm and a 1,6 crop factor, I had to zoom in a lot later while editing. Nevertheless I scored 84-23983. Please also note the nice noseart on C-17A 05-5142.
I was on a business trip that day and stopped for a short lunch break at the 08 site of Ramstein Air Base. When I was on my way back to the car, I heard a strange noise. A German Air Force (Luftwaffe) Airbus A400M came in, so I was able to photograph him. This Airbus A400M is registered with 54+01. It was the first flight since delivery on December 19, 2014.
I went to Ramstein Air Base today to check out an exercise with the U.S. Special Operations Command and two Bell Boeing CV-22B Ospreys. The Ospreys belong to the 7th Special Operations Squadron (7 SOS), which is currently based at Royal Air Force Station Mildenhall in Suffolk, UK. As they were only on a one hour mission, I guess they went to Baumholder range.
My first trip in 2015 brought me to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. When I arrived, I was pretty sure that this will be a nice day out with some great photos and brilliant light on them. After the civillian Atlas Air Boeing 747 came in, the weather got progressively worse. To give you an idea, I had to change from 100 ISO and f8 to 400 ISO and f5.6. Highlight was a McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender.
Went to Ramstein for 3 hours to check out what's going on. Light conditions were very challenging, but at least we had some traffic around. Highlight on this afternoon was a Lithuanian Air Force C-27J Spartan military transport aircraft with serial '08'. Some time ago I got C-27J serial '07' in Luxembourg, so only '06' to go. The Lithuanian Air Force is operating these 3 out of Siauliai-Zokniai.
Wow. What a great surprise today. I tried to catch this very rare red/white UH-60A since the beginning of 2006, when the US Army changed from the UH-1H Huey to the UH-60 Black Hawk. They belong to Task Force Sinai, which is the US regiment-sized element of the Multinational Force and Observers ("MFO"), the peacekeeping organization in place in the Sinai Peninsula.