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Kleine Brogel X-service

Thursday the 15th of March was a beautiful 'pre-spring' day in Belgium. The sky was blue and the temperature was high for this time of the year. Definitely a great day for flying. Today the cross servicing of Kleine Brogel was expecting no less than seven visiting aircraft. Combined with the fine weather, there were enough reasons for 3Greens.nl to visit this nice base.

First of all four Portuguese F-16s from Esq 301 "Jaguares" were expected to come in on their return flight from Exercise "Cold Response" all the way from Bodø, Norway. Just after midday the first flight of two aircraft appeared on the horizon, half an hour later followed by the second couple. Esq 301 is a rather new squadron within the Portuguese Air Force. They operate together with Esq 201 from Monte Real Air Base. Esq301 is still receiving "new" jets. They get updated F-16MLUs from the United States from the boneyard (AMARC) and currently have six aircraft (three A and three B models) in their inventory for 12 pilots to fly them. It took them 2,4 hours to fly the 1300km from Bodø and another two hours to fly back to Portugal which is about a 1000kms from Kleine Brogel.

Next to this there were also two French Alpha Jets from EAC00.314. This unit trains French and Belgian pilots and is based at Tours. In one aircraft there was a complete French crew (student and instructor) and in the other one a Belgian crew. After a short lunch stop they returned back to France.

Finally this day Kleine Brogel Air Base welcomed an Airbus 319 from the Czech Air Force. This aircraft flies with 241.sdl, based at Praha-Kbely Airport. The main mission for 241.sdl is VIP and troop transport. The aircraft was brand new as it was only one month old. It was on a crew training mission and made a short (crew change) stop both in the morning and in the afternoon.

All in all this was certainly a great day of flying at 'KeeBee'. 3Greens.nl would like to thank the people of Kleine Brogel Air Base for their hospitality and we hope to come back soon!