Hawgsmoke 2010

Every two years, the A-10 Thunderbolt II community gathers for a bombing, missile, and tactical gunnery competition. Known as Hawgsmoke, the competition tests the skills that A-10 pilots employ in the aircraft’s primary role of close air support.

What is Hawgsmoke?
Hawgsmoke is a biennial worldwide A-10 bombing, missile, and tactical gunnery competition. Hosted by the winners of the previous competition, Hawgsmoke is an intense competition and an opportunity to share in the camaraderie and fellowship of the world’s premier Close Air Support fighter, as well as legacy of its pilots and support crews.

Hawgsmoke traces its heritage of the now discontinued "Gunsmoke" event. Gunsmoke was the USAF's air-to-ground gunnery and bombing competition with multiple airframes held at Nellis AFB. The last Gunsmoke event was held in 1995.

Since I am a big fan of the A-10 "warthog", it was a 'must' for me to go to one of the hawgsmoke competitions.

The last time Hawgsmoke was held was in Kansas,

and the 190th FS won, the squadon is based at Gowen-Field in Boise Idaho.

And january 2010, I decided, to go,
booked my ticket in june, and waited for 4 long months, before finally, the month october came in sight!

I know a A-10 pilot, I met @ spangdahlem airbase, who is based at the 190th Fighter Squadron,
who was planning to get me on base, but an two star army general, had plans to ban all the foregn,
media and civilians from base during the exercise.....

The A-10 pilot, arranged me to get to the sailor-creek live firing range,(few miles southeast from Mountain-Home AFB) were all the action was!

Took a lot of pic's there, was really a great experience, to see and  (HEAR!) the GAU-8/AVENGER hydraulically-driven seven-barrel  shoot!, what a noise!.

We were about 150 yards from the line shooting- target, so pretty close.....
and the weather during my stay at Boise was really great! mostly clear skies,
and temperature about23C / 73 F.

Also managed to get some pic's were you can see some bullit's coming from the GAU-8 barrel!
http://www.airplane-pictures.net/image106906.html

some links were I posted some hawgsmoke pics,

http://forum.scramble.nl/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=67664

http://www.milspotters.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4610

http://fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21455

some arrival pic's, not shown on the link above...click on the pic's for higher resolution!

please come back later, will put some pic's (live shooting and departure) on my blog later!

Nice video i'd made of the hawgsmoke exercise...

                                                        
                                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqgAgP4o4O0    

day at the fence Wittmund, Germany 25/05/2010

This day I went with my buddy H de R., to the F-4 'phantom' base in germany.

There were rumours that the base should close down, next september.
But we spoke to a German spotter, and he tolt us, that there was only a building construction stop.

The authorities are planning to make the base Eurofighter ready.

Anyway on with the show!

nice splitterplate art,

lots of noise during take-off

last of the smokers

burning rubber

Target-tow A-4 Scooter

we saw 3 'scrambles' that day

nice visitor from 'flight test'

still is one of the best looking planes around.

this one is located near wittmund town,

oh and that's me....sorry for that!

photo by H. de R.

Frisian flag 2010@ leeuwarden

Finally after a long winter stop, there was a nice aviation exercise at Leeuwarden airbase.
@ 14/4 and 15/4, I was on base, for the Frisian Flag exercise,
There were Dutch, U.S., finnish, German, Tjech, Polish, and some fighters from Norway at the base
for the exercise.
unfortunately I did not see the German F-4's fly, because they had some ejection seat problems,
All the F-4's from the Luftwaffe were grounded  for the next couple of day's

on top of it all, the iclandic vulcano sent it's ashes toward Europe, so that all flying activities stopped the afternoon of 15/04,The mission was cancelled during takeoff, I was lucky enough to see 80% fly, and the rest taxi in front of me!

below some stuff that I saw that day....

noisy stuff...

Polorizer used, great effect on colors

Nice splitter plate art!

Friday 02/04/2010 @ Volkel

Last friday I had the day off.
What is better then to spent time at the fence of an fighter base!

Mig Killer!

nice tigertail

 In case you are wondering, where did he took those banking shot's,

check the image below....                      

                                   

airplanes with vapour

due to the atmospheric conditions mostly when it's wet or moist,
you can get some nice vapours behind or around an airplane.
here some examples of images I took at different airshows the past few years.....