RAF Mildenhall Friday 22nd February 2019
My first trip to RAF Mildenhall in 2019. I'd spent most of the morning at RAF Lakenheath watching the departure of the 'Mi Amigo' flypast F-15E's with their return as a 4-ship a couple of hours later.
Shortly after 11AM I headed to RAF Mildenhall where I'd spend the rest of the day.
Activity turned out to be pretty non-stop, with numerous circuits by the home based Lockheed MC-130J Commando II aircraft together with several RAF Mildenhall based Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers heading off to refuel a couple of Rockwell B-1B lancers which were heading to the gulf region.
It turned out to be an excellent few hours with lots of flying from the home team, the highlight though, had to be shortly after 1PM, when a pair of RAF Marham based Tornado GR4's, ZD744/092 & ZA587/055 as they flew straight down the runway, side by side, undercarriage & flaps down, before accelerating away into the distance, totally unexpected & my last sighting of the Tornado GR4 flying as they were to be retired a week or so later.
A little after 3PM saw the arrival of a USAF Boeing C-17A Globemaster III from Charleston AFB, 09-9207, gorgeous & in excellent light too. Activity was still pretty constant at this point. Shortly before 5PM this same C-17 called up asking for permission to engine start, so I decided to hang around to watch the aircraft leave, which it did just after 5.30PM, just as the light was fading.
All in all a cracking few hours.
Also, as a real bonus all Arrivals/departures were via Runway 11! This section contains 75 unique images taken during my visit:
All images copyright İRoger Whitcomb 2019 - www.milairpix.com
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