September 2011, Archive Story
11 Sqdn Lightnings Visit 1st All Weather Fighter Wing of Beauvechain, Belgium in 1979
This article is from Serge Bonfond who spent ten
years in the Belgian Air Force as an NCO career technician. He was based
for 10 years at the 1st All Weather Fighter Wing of Beauvechain, as an
engine specialist on the General Dynamics F-16 ( Now Lockheed
Martin).
Serge sent me some photographs he took back in December 79 of three 11
Squadron Lightnings which visited his base, recollections were that one
of the Mk6's had a fault of some sort and this resulted in a T5 being
flown in with the required parts and also a technician in the spare
seat. It would be interesting to find out who the lucky chap was,
sitting in the T Bird with the pilot, and any further information about
the occasion. The aircraft were as follows A - XR754, E -
XR763 and T - XS416
Serge sent me 5 photos of the aircraft, all his photographs can be seen in the photo gallery. I would like to say a big thank you to Serge for sharing this article and his photographs with us. I would suggest that you visit Serge's website for a very enjoyable read of his account of the ten years he spent in the Belgian Air Force, and the similarities to the RAF enlistment process.