Military Jets Photography: 2016 10 11 SAR meet Koksijde

The Search and Rescue (SAR) meet was this year held between 10 and 13 October at Koksijde Air Force base. Koksijde is home to 40th squadron flying three new NH90-NFHs and three Sea King Mk48s. The unit also operates three Alouette III helicopters on behalf of the Naval Component, being deployed regularly as a ship-based helicopters.
In the build up to the SAR meet a list of participants was made public with some vare rare and juicy helicopters like a Norwegian Sea King, Latvian Mi-8, Portuguese Merlin, Polish Mi-8, French Navy NH90-NFH, Spanish Super Puma, French Caracal and Dutch NH90-NFH. Unfortunately all these cancelled two weeks prior to the start which left the participants field very empty with only two foreign helicopters. These were the German Navy Sea King MK41 and a special painted Austrian SE3160. The home team came in full force with the NH90-NFH, Alouette III and the Sea King Mk48.
On October 11 there was a spottersday organised. Blessed with beautiful autumn weather the spottersday was a success considering the small amount of flyers. Today the participants had to make a navigation flight in the province of West-Flanders. Before take-off they passed by the spottersday and made a nice 360° tour. When coming back they performed some nice fly by's whereas the NH90-NFH and the Sea KIng MK48 both fulfilled a SAR demo in front of the spotters. The Federal Police helicopter was also present at Koksijde during the day performing two demos.