Brussels Airport invited all newsletter subscribers to participate to a contest. A couple of weeks after answering the questions, I was informed that I was one of the 30 lucky winners, who received an invitation for the 5th Spotters Day, on July 31st. It was a great day: besides getting a close view to the flying activities, we got to see the brand new fire station, the maintenance hangar of Brussels Airlines and we also payed a visit to the 15th Wing of the Belgian Air Force, which is flying the mighty C-130H Hercules transport airplanes. Much to our surprise, we received visitors as well, as some journalists from the national radio and television joined us in the afternoon.

Brussels Airlines organized a photo contest on Facebook. I was one of the ten lucky winners who won a "meet-and-greet" with the 5 Belgian Icons.

 

 

This year, the photo club organized a trip to West-Sicily. After picking up the car at Palermo airport, we drove to our hotel near Trapani.

We started by visiting the old city.

On day 2, we traveled with a small ship to some of the Egadic islands: Favignana and Levanzo.

On day 3 we traveled back in time and visited the Greek temples of Selinunte.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at some salt pans to see the sun set.

Unfortunately, day 4 was a bit rainy, and this shortened our walk in the Zingaro natural reserve.

On day 5 we went up by cable car to visit the town of Erice, which offered a nice view over Trapani and its surroundings.

From there, it was a short hop to Segesta, another location with a Greek temple and an amphitheater.

On day 6 we visited Marsala where the famous wine is made.

On the final day we had to drive to Catania airport. We stopped at Enna, the highest town in Sicily, with a view on the Etna volcano.

It was a great trip, with a lot of fun and of course great food.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) celebrates its 100th birthday. On our way to and from the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), we spend some time visiting aircraft museums (near Hendon and near Manston).

Finally, after all these years, my home airport received a proper spotter corner. In fact, there are 2 spotter locations, so that you can always take pictures, no matter from which direction the wind is blowing.

The airfield of Schaffen (near Diest) hosted the annual Oldtimer Fly- & Drive In. Despite the bad weather on Saturday, resulting in fewer visiting aircraft, there were still some interesting aircraft, such as this Miles Messenger.

We went to Dieppe in order to learn more about "Operation Jubilee" (The Dieppe Raid, 19-Aug-1942).
Despite this terrible event in the history of World War II, the region of Dieppe is really peaceful now.

The Red Bull Air Race in Budapest is an event I was looking forward to. To see it live is even more spectacular than on television. Although I am used to taking aviation pictures I really had a hard time, because of the continuous variations in distance and speed.

The Red Bull Collection contains a lot of beautiful aircraft, and they were displayed in a graceful manner in front of a huge crowd alongside the Danube river.

I was one of the 25 lucky winners who have been invited by Brussels Airport for a spotters day. We had the chance to get a guided tour of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from ANA and got the opportunity to take close pictures of airplanes taking-off and landing on runway 25R.

Ursel airfield is known for its Wings & Wheels event, but the open door days from the local flying club is quite an event too.

Getting out of my comfort zone! Urbex photography is something else...

 

 

Although this event is not an airshow, some fly-by's and the formation flights were quite spectacular, because of the short distance to the crowd.

The annual Sanicole Airshow was a great event. Looking forward to next year's 40th edition.

The 33rd Oldtimer Drive- & Fly-in was held at the Schaffen-Diest airfield, which celebrated 100 years.

The Red Devils performed their low-level routine, since this is not an airshow.

The F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II were some of the highlights at the Royal International Air Tattoo.

The F-35 was presented both in A (conventional landing) and B (vertical/short take-off/landing) versions.

It was also the very last appearance of the French Ramex Delta Tactical Display Team (on Mirage 2000N).

The year 2016 started with a trip to Brazil to celebrate a wedding of a friend in Piracicaba, near São Paulo.

After that we traveled to Chili and visited the region of the lakes and the volcanoes.

 

Despite the fact that the 5th Sanicole Sunset Airshow on Friday suffered a few cancellations because of technical issues, it was a great event. Seeing the Belgian F-16 Demo aircraft leading the n° 1 of a number of European display teams was a rare and magnificent sight.

The 38th Sanicole International Airshow on Sunday offered a lot of variation, from classic to modern aircraft, both civil and military. This cannot be illustrated much better than with Breitling's Constellation leading the Patrouille Suisse.

This year we made the trip to Fairford for RIAT 2015 to see the best military aircraft from past, present and future.
I was honored to witness one of the last flights of the mighty Vulcan as well as a beautiful fly-past for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. We also saw a lot of the aircraft departing on Monday which is traditionally impressive. On the way back to Dover, we visited Rye, a medieval town.

It has been 10 years since I last was at Le Bourget in France to visit the Paris Air Show.
It was bit of a disappointment since a lot of manufacturers decided not to stay for the public days.
Because of the large crowd it was also difficult to photograph the static aircraft.
But thanks to the French chauvinism we were able to see some spectacular aircraft displays from Airbus.

On the way back from La Ferté we visited a German World War I graveyard.
More than 30.000 soldiers have been buried there...

Next we stopped at a tunnel that is still in use to tow ships through a hill.
The tower is a ship that electrically pulls itself using a chain in the canal.

Finally we stopped in Le Quesnoy, a fortified city.
While the walls are being restored, a lot of the water around is changed into a parc.

It has been a few years ago since I visited the airshow in La Ferté-Alais (France). Getting in and out was a little bit hectic but the airshow was fabulous, with a large range of classic aircraft from various periods.

Flying displays were held in order to celebrate the 25th Stampe-Vertongen fly in at Deurne Airport in Antwerp.

The weather on Sunday was really nice so that we could enjoy this "mini-airshow".

Meanwhile regular commercial activities were still ongoing at the International Airport.

 

Some years ago I visited the western part of Canada, traveling from Vancouver to Calgary via the Rocky Mountains. This time I went to the eastern part and spent some time in Montréal and Toronto.
I also took the opportunity to visit the Niagara Falls.

No Sanicole Airshow this year, but Belgian Air Force Days at KeeBee (Kleine Brogel). I was there on Friday for the spotters day and on Saturday for the airshow. I hardly took pictures on Saturday because it was too crowdy.

For the first time in my life I attended an airshow in Switzerland. The traffic jams while entering the parking lots were horrible but the show was amazing. There were 3 themes: the 100th anniversary of the Swiss Air Force, the 50th anniversary of the Patrouille Suisse and the 25th anniversary of the PC-7 Team.

There is no need to travel far to discover beautiful landscapes.
These pictures were taken around Vossem and Bertem, not so far from were I live.

Imaginem.eu organized a meet and shoot with Marc Wynen, a famous urbex photographer. Marc introduced the participants to urbex photography in the old coalmine of Beringen.
We all had a great day and returned with a lot of inspiration!

 

For the first time Flanders organized an aviation day to promote the aerospace industry and the jobs in this sector. This gave us the opportunity to visit Brussels airport on the air side as well as the brand new "Jetairport" building, which was opened last year.

For those who missed the expo, these are the pictures that I exposed:

The annual photography exposition is approaching... Everyone is welcome!

The 37th International Sanicole Airshow was another great event with a lot of different airplanes and helicopters being displayed in front of an large crowd. There were even some rare aircraft like a Super Constellation (only 2 are flying worldwide, one in Australia and one in Europe).

 

Despite fearing some bad weather I attended the 4th Sanicole Sunset Airshow. Luckily it was dry for most of the time; there was just some drizzle during the Belgian F-16 demonstration (I wonder how the pilot was able to orientate because from time to time the jet simply disappeared in the clouds).

 

We drove all the way to Austria in order to attend the AIRPOWER meeting in Zeltweg. It certainly was one of the best airshows I ever saw, maybe because of the location (seeing fighters perform their routine in front of mountains is not a usual sight for me) and the accessibility (with good views on the runway and on the taxiways). In addition I was surprised to see how well-organized this mega-event was (despite having 200.000 people attending the show on Saturday, the traffic jams were not too bad and there was plenty of food and drinks for everyone).

On route we stopped in Germany, visiting Günzburg, Obersalzberg and Regensburg.

The "Luchtmachtdagen" (that is Dutch for the Royal Netherlands Air Force Days) were held in Volkel and celebrated 100 years of military aviation in the Netherlands.

The air force managed to invite 4 demonstration teams to the event: Patrouille Suisse, Frecce Tricolori, Red Arrows and Patrouille de France. Unfortunately we missed the display of the Italian team because we were visiting the cargo hold of a C-17 Globemaster III (next time, we should take a closer look at the display schedule).

Thanks to Singapore Airlines and the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy I was able to discover Central- and West-Java.

Indonesia is a great country to travel to. There are many possibilities (ranging from cultural visits, walks in the wonderful nature and leisure time) in a warm and relaxed atmosphere. The Indonesian people are very friendly and service-minded. I also spent a few days in Singapore, which looks quite futuristic from certain angles, offering a lot of photo opportunities.

 

For the first time we went on a trip abroad with our photo club Klik-Klak.
It was a lot of fun and we all came back with hundreds of pictures.

Two of my pictures taken in 2012 have been published in Flight International magazine of 12 December 2012:

One of these pictures has also been published online on Flightglobal.com:

Both the 3rd Sanicole Sunset Airshow and the 36th Sanicole International Airshow were splendid events. The Sanicole Sunset Airshow on Friday saw some rain but this was largely compensated by the fireworks making the evening show even more spectacular and exciting than in previous years.

 

The Sanicole International Airshow on Sunday had some special visitors, like the B-52 bomber, the Saab Viggen vintage fighter and Hannes Arch flying his Edge aircraft really on the edge!

The beautiful weather provided a good ending of the airshow season.

 

With the exception of Sanicole Airshow (in September) big airshows are becoming rare in Belgium. An event like the Florennes International Airshow is quite exceptional and we will probably have to wait another 10 year before we get a similar event. I am happy I visited the show on Saturday because a lot of flying displays were cancelled on Sunday due to the bad weather. One of the highlights for me was the Swiss PC-7 Team: they performed such a perfect routine despite the windy conditions affecting their smaller turbo-prop trainer aircrafts.

While visiting the DiabolO project (see previous post) I discovered the railway station of Brussels Airport and decided to go back to test my fisheye objective.

The DiabolO project connects Brussels Airport with a direct railway connection to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp. I subscribed to a special event to discover the tunnel that was built under the airport runways. The event was well organized with a lot of things to see (such as dansers performing on the platforms, a lightshow in the tunnel and many other attractions). Unfortunately our return train, although brand new, had some technical difficulties and our return trip lasted a little longer than expected...

It has been a while since I visited the Cinquantenaire Museum in Brussels. This time I was keen to visit "The progress came from the sky", a temporary exposition providing a historical overview of our once so glamorous national airline SABENA which went bankrupt in 2001. There was a lot to see, ranging from posters up to engine cross-sections, but most space was taken by clothes both of flying and non-flying personel.

Although I enjoyed my visit I must admit that I was much more surprised by the molding shop. No airplane models this time but a vast collection of well-know statues, all replicas of course, but what a craftmanship is required to build the molds and reproduce the statues. As a matter of fact, the molding shop in Brussels has over 40.000 molds in stock. This makes it unique in Europe; only Berlin has a similar shop and Paris (although much smaller).

After a small lunch on Tervueren Avenue I visited the Air Museum which did not offer much new, but the ongoing works made it clear that big parts of the museum are being renewed.