Well, we’ll take ‘em if Germany doesn’t like the sound of them. The desert is pretty good training ground…

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the Luffwaffe first hand when I move to Holloman next month! Too cool!

Germany is crowded in the air and on the ground, even the rural areas are quite populated. The Luftwaffe recently thought it had found a large air-to-ground training area in the north-east of Germany, nick-named “Bombodrome”, but stiff resistance from some locals, the left, and the eco-movement have put that into question again.

Back in the Seventies I remember seeing a Phantom in the air or hearing a sonic boom quite often, always exciting for a child (or probably I just want to remember). In retrospective I find that remarkable, because I did live in an industrial area somewhat remote from every airbase and that means there must have been quite some level of NATO air-traffic for alertness and preparedness.

If the German public could have it as it wanted, it would sell all Luftwaffe aircraft on ebay and use the money on kindergardens, public-health and other things it finds more worthwile. It is open talk in the German press that the Eurofighter Typhoon is the last manned jet-plane the Luftwaffe will ever get, and after that only UAVs and that was it.

And one of the German pilots at Holloman AFB told him that the German government is kind of anti-it’s-own military and doesn’t give them the airspace needed to train in. I wasn’t just presuming, although who knows…it might have been sour grapes on his part.

While I was there the USAFE base with the BEST wx in terms of no-fly days/yr was WORSE than the WORST USAF base in here CONUS.

PS: Most European nations have a tradition of customized paint jobs for special occasions. NATO has a “Tiger Day” (or used to anyway)fly-in weekend every year in which every sq with a Tiger insignia in every country creates a special paint-job for the fandango . Really something to see.