Military Jets Photography: 2011 04 18 Spotting at LFSR

The French Air Force is organized into Escadrons (Squadrons). In turn, each escadron is made up of several Escadrilles (Flights). The designations of many escadrilles can be traced back to their World War I heritage. Escadrilles with the BR. designation flew Breguet aircraft, C. flew Caudrons, N. the Nieuport fighters, SAL. Salmson, and SPA. the SPAD fighters.
Reims had 2 squadrons namely ER 01.033 and ER 02.033. Escadre de Reconnaissance 01.033 “Belfort” has been disbanded at 24 june 2010 leaving Escadre de Reconnaissance 02.033 “Savoie”
ER 02.033 alone at BA112. But the days of ER 02.033 are almoast over at Reims because they will move to Mont-de-Marsan in June and Reims will be closed accordingly.
So with that in mind, Jan and I went to Reims to see some Mirages F1. The weather forecast was superb and so was the flying. Although the morning was a bit calm, probably because of some high ranked visitor. Once he had left the base the flying began.
During the day we had 7 diffirent Mirages flying, these included all versions (Mirage F.1B, Mirage F.1CT and Mirage F.1CR). The first movement was a special one as it was one of the Mirages returning from Solenzara, Corse were several Mirages are participating in the no-fly zone mission above Libya. According to a local spotter 2 more were expected but we stayed till 19h and they still hadn't shown up. There flightplan must have been changed to another date?
Reims is perfect for taking pictures. The pilots, the fireman and even the base police all waved to the spotters along the fence. For take-off and landing shot you'll need around 500mm to have a nice filled frame. But for taxi shots you don't need a long tele at all.
Jan and I went back home after a very nice day with some really nice photos. We might visit Reims again before the Mirages are really gone.