Blackbird1 From Germany, joined Mar 2002, 220 posts, RR: 6 Posted (10 years 7 months 1 week 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 2478 times:
Just to let you know, a South African Air Force tanker B.707-328C (1415, ex Air France, c/n 19522 ) visited the German flight test center (WTD 61) at Manching from October, 25th to November, 4th. The reason for this very rare and interesting deployment was to pick up two German Tornados , which will make use of a South African live firing range. I'm very happy that I was able to shoot this picture on one of the few refuelling training missions.
FACT From South Africa, joined Jul 2002, 200 posts, RR: 6 Reply 1, posted (10 years 7 months 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 1183 times:
Lovely photos, Gerhard
From having only 1 photo of a SAAF B707 on the database until a couple of weeks ago, we've suddenly gone to having 6 (three of a sister ship at the recent airshow at Pretoria have also been uploaded).
Just a bit of background to this deployment: the South African military has an airbase and a weapons testing range near the town of Bredasdorp in the south of the Western Cape province, which has been underutilised since the end of the armed conflict in this region a decade ago. In order to make these facilities "pay their way" they have been made available for hire to foreign militaries for testing purposes. The area where the base is located is sparsely populated and right along the sea, and there's little civil air traffic around, so it's ideal for military aircraft to operate without restrictions.
One of the air forces that has made a deal to use this facility is the Luftwaffe - only problem was to get its Tornados to South Africa, and this is where the SAAF B707 tanker comes in - it flies to Germany to collect a couple of Tornados, escorts them all the way back to South Africa, and when the deployment is over, it accompanies them back to their base in Germany.
This is the second round trip that this particular aircraft, 1415, has made to Germany this year.
CV990 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (10 years 7 months 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 1194 times:
Hi!
Yes! Finnally we have good pictures of those rare SAAF 707's! I think the one and only I saw before was in an Air International years ago and it was such a good one, congratulations and I always like to see an ex: civil 707 still flying in military air forces!
Regards
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From Germany, joined Mar 2002, 220 posts, 
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