The main event on Friday was the „crew challange“: 16 international teams with four players each competed in diverse caregories: First Aid, skill parcours, precision shooting (pistol and rifle) and survival techniques.

First Aid

Precision shooting

A unique experience to each one of us was the gala dinner on Friday night. 600 invited guests from Royals, British Government, countless military attachés, diplomats and senior military made this evening an unforgettable event. As a highlight the winners of the different trophies have been honored.

We were proud that the trophy for the winner oft he crew challange was presented to us.

presentation of the crew challange

Saturday and Sunday were the days of the airshow at Fairford airbase. The weather at these days was typically British – strong wind, low clouds and heavy rain at each morning. Due to that weather situation the airshow’s morning program on Saturday was cancelled by the airshow director. But at noon the airshow could start and deeply impress the visitors.

Vulcan

Sunday started nearly the same way than Saturday. But this day our display pilot started the show with his program in the late morning.

Entire delegation seeks shelter from the rain

This very successful Airshow was finished by the salute hangar party, where all participating crews were invited.

On 25th October the crew and their J-105 were ready and after a briefing and a weather check, which warned about moderate turbulence on the approach to Innsbruck, the flight was started in direction Innsbruck. The flight was executed without any incidents in a relatively high altitude of flight level 270 and nothing of the reported turbulence could be felt. Innsbruck radar informed us that the recently landed C-130 Hercules reported strong turbulence in the south of the Inn Valley. So we decided to proceed for the rest of the approach as ‘VFR’ flight in the north of the Inn Vally.

The welcome at the Innsbruck airport was warm and friendly and we felt comfortable and welcome from the very first minute.

The next day, the national holiday, all the present aircraft crews started the day motivated and expected interested and enthusiastic people. Promptly at 10:00 clock the gates of the airport opened, so visitors were able to walk onto the ramp to take a look at the machines parked there. Throughout the day there was a steady run on to the aircraft and the crews, who had a lot of work to answer all the people’s and fan’s questions as good as possible. We received a lot of positive feedback from nearly all 30,000 visitors of the airfield festival and enjoyed the great atmosphere with live music, demonstrations of the Police Special Force ‘Cobra’, with various air shows and especially with the great gallery of the Tyrolean mountains! At 5 o’clock p.m. the end of the festival was announced over the airport loudspeaker and the visitors started their journey back home from an exciting and informative day.

The next day at 9 o’clock we started our flight back to Linz which was carried out without any incidents.

Many Happy Landings!!!

During September 2011 the Austrian Armed Forces trained with 2000 soldiers and 42 aircraft the defense against terror. In this fictive scenario Austria’s oil producing industry faced massive attacks in order to destabilze the Austrian government. The aim of the terrorists was to reduce the number of Austrian soldiers within their country.

(Picture: Bundesheer)

The Tigerstaffel was split into two parts: one part remained in Hörsching (“the good guys”) the other moved to Langenlebarn (“the pirates”). Especially for the aggressors the excercise was very exciting. We recieved the order to “fly below the radar” in the lowest allowed altitude. In Austria this is 150m above ground. Be aware: in other countries (e.g. Germany) a jet below 300m above ground is declared as “low level flight”. In order to behave like an foreign aircraft we were allowed to cross the Austrian border. Therefore we also flew overhead Germany and Hungary!

(Picture: Bundesheer)

The good guys had also a lot of interessing things to deal with: instead of the usual suspects like Eurofighter, Hercules and PC-7 they also had to intercept aircraft like a german PC-9 and a Swiss F-18!

(Bild: Tokunaga)

The Amadeus is a very important and interessting excercise. The Tigerstaffel is looking forward to participating in the next Amadeus!

So one lucky guy (the one who pulled the shortest stick) started his long journey to the Kilimandscharo in September 2011! After a exhausting ascent to the summit were are now 100% sure: it is true!

Of course we have an evidence: here is a picture from the 5895m high mountain:

Hier sind schon mal die ersten Bilder!

The prearrangements for this great event were a real challange for the squadron. The creation of the new tent was a very short decision and designing, odering,organisation and arranging of the different fanarticles are two examples for the reasons of this challange. Also a display-pilot’s short-termed cold just one week prior to the airshow was a problem whereby the squadron had to train another pilot for flying in the fourship formation very quickly.

But never the less: the Austrian Tiger Squadron was able to handle all these problems due to the great working moral and comradeship within the whole squadron so that we was proud and glad to present our flying skills for all the people which were present at the airshow, but also to carry out our static display and our fanshop with lots of fanarticles.

One especial highlight was the new Tiger’s Solo-Display. The new Tiger is already very accustomed in the Austrian Tiger Squadron and the great design is attracting everybody, wherever somebody is able to see him. Also the feedback of the airshow’s visitors and fans has shown the people’s ardour for this special-paintet jet, exceptionally the Tiger’s great display it self.

We were very encouraged about all the demands and interests realating to our aircraft, our fanarticles and our squadron. Engineers, pilots, stocked kids and teenagers, young and old fans coming from the whole world visited our fanshop and was talking with us about old times, new objektives and first of all about flying in the present.

We are looking forward to the next Airpower and expeting to be able to welcome all of you at the next airshow in Zeltweg!

Here is a short youTube video showing the J105 4-ship display:

After getting the approval down the chain of command and all preparations  done all 31 participants from 7 different nations met on time in LECHFELD (Germany). In order to recover from the exertions caused by up to 13 hours of driving we got served Bavarian veal sausage at the officers mess. After finishing lunch we departed in direction Manching to visit EADS. Highlight for everyone among the Eurofighter Typhoon production line was the guided tour at the Willy Messerschmitt foundation. We had the possibility to marvel at an airworthy Me- 262 an a BF- 109. Once all questions were answered we set course to Munich to treat ourselves to some fine Bavarian food at Augustinerbräu. There after we set off for Sankt Johann in Tirol (Austria) where we took up quarters at Winterstellerbarracks, home of the 24^th Infantry battalion.

After some needed rest and solid breakfast everybody was set to start a day of skiing at the famous Kitzbühler Horn. Unfortunately the weather was not as ordered but that fact had no impact either on the moral or on the completed ski runs. At late afternoon the traditional Tigergames were on the schedule. This time all participants had to master a special winter triathlon in teams of four. This triathlon included an ascent with snowshoes followed by rapid descend by “Zipfelbob” (kind of a plastic disc with handle) finalized by live shooting on biathlon targets. After hard but fair matches it was clear that the team from 211 SQN performed best. The medals were presented at the victory ceremony in the evening followed by an informal Austrian dinner.

Because of the rain on the previous day we decided to change the skiing area to Steinplatte which is more elevated. There we could enjoy perfect slopes in perfect weather conditions. Due to the demanding skiing on both days everybody had a gigantic appetite at the buffet. Even more than enough food was served we were forced to order some more pizza.

On Monday it was time for departure. All international participants went back to Lechfeld by bus from where all squadrons started their journey home either by car or plane.

Thanks to the tigers from 321 SNQ and to Michael for the cooperation and support which made this weekend an eventful Mini Tiger Meet.

International participants

• 31 SQN Belgum
• 338 SQN Norway
• 221 SQN Czech Republic
• 211 SQN Czech Republic
• TRW 51 Germany
• 230 SQN UK
• 321 SQN Germany
• NTA Advisor DOC and FÜRST

The preperations:

We are proud to say that the Austrian Air Force is able to take part in a Nato Tiger Meet on a regular base. As every year many people, beginning from our high command down to squadron level, did an awesome job in helping to make this participation possible for our squadron and hence for the fixed wing part of our Air Force.
A special thing about this NTM was that accommodation for all crews was planned to be in a huge tent city with its own infrastructure like for example “tent showers” and a mobile laundry. So we have been looking forward to two interesting weeks with a touch of field training.

Getting started:

Tuesday morning broke and we’ve been up to the sky for our first mission together with 2 French Mirage 2000 against 2 Swiss F18 Hornets. The task was to cover and protect an airborne transport element. Right away we tried to keep our adversaries busy by turning tight and fast, meanwhile the French guys tried to get in the six of them. Initially we have not been too successful with our tactics but as time went by we improved our maneuvering and hence we got more successful. After the mission every participant had its own debriefing before we all met again for the final lessons learned.
The very next day a completely other mission was up on the schedule for our squadron. We had to work together with ground troops by protecting a convoy. Initially we just gave them reconnaissance of their route but very soon the ground forces have been under attack. So we had to do quite some work to give them the support they needed to get out of trouble. Thanks to our good preparation back home we have been able to fulfill this task very well.

The tasks for the rest of the exercise became more demanding every day. So once the requested flight time was the biggest problem the other day we have been heavily outnumbered. Nevertheless we logged some valuable flying time over France and we took away very good lessons learned.

Needless to say that we were discussing the latest missions long after the official debriefing was over. So we successfully fulfilled our second task, keeping the good contact to our fellow tigers we met during the last tiger meets.

What we took away:

In a fast developing environment like military aviation there is nothing as important as keeping on top of things by constantly training and improving skills in a multinational environment. Once again we want to take the opportunity to thank all the people that made our participation in NTM 2011 possible, may they never forget about the benefits for the whole flying community in Austria.

Many happy landings and T3

The airshow was visited quite well and we were lucky to have one with us who is speaking French fluently, hence he was the contact person number one for the public. English and German are not an option in this area. The interest in our SAAB 105 was high due to the fact that it’s 41 years old and not often seen at airshows.

Among the displaying aircraft were some highlights, like the flyby of the new Airbus 400M or an aerobatic display of the CriCri (an aircraft hardly bigger than a table). The big formations like the Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France impressed with their great performances.

Apart from working at the airshow we just had to enjoy some local food. Therefore we went to La Rochelle to try all the seafood and to enjoy the marvelous atmosphere at the atlantic coast.

Time went by quickly and we flew back to Austria via Payerne, where we took some lunch with swiss pilots.