Afterburner.nl - Indian Air Force at Pratica di Mare

Ferrying six Indian Jaguars back home

Last June we all were surprised by an Indian Air Force deployment which passed through Europe en route to the exercise Cope Thunder in Alaska. This deployment consisted of 2 IL-76’s for technical support, 2 brand new IL-78MKI’s tanker aircraft and 6 Jaguars. Flying this way is not the shortest route possible but the Indian Air Force decided to do it this way. Coming from Cairo they flew via Pratica di Mare to Monte Real and Lajes in Portugal before crossing the Atlantic. In the beginning of August we received messages that the deployment was going home again. They were expected to travel via Italy in the second week of August, and lucky we were on holiday in Italy that period. So after leaving the wife and kids on the beach we made a 3 hour drive. After arriving at the airbase we saw that unfortunately runway 13 was in use which is not very good for taking pictures. The view on the final approach was completely blocked by a Forrest and the position for taking photos was very near a busy road. To make it worse the fence on the other side of the road was very high so the timeframe from seeing the aircraft coming behind the trees and flying over the fence was only some three seconds.

Looking for a parking spot near that busy road resulted that we only saw the first IL-76 coming in and were not yet ready to photograph it. We decided to park the car near a crash gate and then go by foot along the road to look for a good photo spot. After 30 Minutes the first “Astra flight” was flying overhead, containing 1 IL-78MKI and 3 Jaguars. The first spot was a little bit to close for a good shot of the IL-78 but for the Jaguars it was fine. The first pictures of Indian Air Force aircraft were shot! The second “Astra” flight followed 45 minutes later and now it was waiting for the last IL-76, but the Caribinieri showed up and asked me to leave because we were parked in a non parking zone. After this nice experience we decided to go back to the beach.