Afterburner.nl - Tactical Leadership Program 2005-2

Some smoke, others don't

For over 14 years Florennes Airbase in the southern part of Belgium, near the city of Dinant, is acting as host for the TLP (Tactical Leadership Program). Every year 5 courses, each over a period of 4 weeks, are held at this airbase. The sixth course is an “out off area” course and is taking place abroad.

Normally the TLP is dominated by F-16 and Tornado activity. TLP '05-2 promised to become a very good one because of the lack of massive F-16 and Tornado pressence and participation of some “old” hardware. No less then 6 German and 4 Greek F-4s were expected, so a good reason to pack our stuff and travel south to join this J-79 fest.

The first view of the TLP flight line gave us a, these days, almost rare sight of 10 F-4 in a row. The 6 German F-4F ICEs (Improved Combat Efficiency) aircraft came from 2 different squadron namely JG71 “Richthofen” from Wittmund AB and JG74 “Molders” from Nueburg AB.

The Greek F-4E AUP (Advanced Update Program) were from 338 Mira “Aris” which have Andravida AB as their home base. These “Spooks” are painted in a obvious “Ghost” camouflage. 38 Greek and 110 German F-4s were update with almost the same package developed by DASA. Both received the APG-65 radar and AMRAAM firing capability.

The main difference is that the German F-4s are used for air defence while the Greek F-4s are used for air to ground. The ones at the TLP were fitted with the Rafael Litening pods. But the biggest visual difference was that the Germans still smoke while the Greek have a healthier life now a days.

The other participants were 3 Tornado GR4s with 9, 12 and 617 squadron markings, 4 Mirage 2000Ns from EC004, 2 AMX from 51 Stormo, 2 F-16A ADF from 23 Gruppo, 3 F/A-18A from 462 Esc based at Gando (Canarian Isles) and 4 USAF F-16Cs (2 from 22FS/52FW and 2 from 31FW).

At 12.15h the first 2 Greek F-4s taxied out for a pre-positioning flight to Leeuwarden AB in the Netherlands. It seemed that the Greek F-4s were the only participants who did no AAR during the TLP. After there departure it was quite calm at the flightline but a hour later there was lots of activity and hell broke out.

First it seemed that they invented another “TLP day”. Besides the already known “flying day” and “academic day”, we thought that today it was “ground abort” day. Lots of aircraft started their engines, to shut them off a couple of minutes later. But in the end every thing taxied out, starting with the Royal Air Force Tornados.

We were able to take some nice shots along the taxi way and after the last aircraft we rushed to the landing area to get some nice landingshots. This was a great way to end the day and to end this TLP which started for us 2 days before when we had the opportunity to get on board an Italian B707T/T. This one was deployed to Eindhoven AB in support of this TLP. Some photos of the flight are in this report but the rest will be online very soon.