Report by: Jacques Vincent et Thierry letellier
As every year now ; i try to save some moments to catch the movements generated by the flightpass for the Paris ‘ défilé ‘ expected for the fourteen of July. The most important part of the fighters taking part, are coming from the BA-105 located at Evreux Fauville at around eighty miles west of Paris. Regrettably since now many years, all the participants representing the French Navy take part and return from Landivisiau Naval Air Station, in Brittany. Some wacky sources edited the rumor that some Super Etendard could make their final flight towards Chateaudun via paris from Evreux. It became quickly evident that it was a joke.
The arrivals were made from outside the base. One of the first planes to appear in the Evreux skies was an E-3F fom EDCA 01.036 at BA-702 Avord AB. Unfortunately it remained airborne ( some times in formation with a C-135FR from GRV 02.091 Bretagne and a rafale. In fact it was to make some images for France Télévision. But it did nothing to come at least for a procedure before returning to Avord ) Then followed M-2000D from EC-3, a pair of Belgian alpha-jets… Then a C160G, which operate in the ELINT role with EEA54 Evreux AB was seen returning from a mission over the channel.
The big plane was followed by 2 pairs of Rafale from EC-4 . As‘ Armée de l’air ‘ came back recently to the idea of escadres, it was the occasion for me to get the new markings for most of those planes. That led us to the end of the afternoon with a not so bad weather conditions. In the same way i got the new marking for the EC-2 M-2000-5, and the alpha jets from Cazaux .
On the fourteen ; we were able to enter to join our dedicated place to make pictures for the departing aircrafts. So we took place with a good amount of time before the first aircraft ready for start-up. When the sound of the first engines began to be heard , a strong shower covered the field during the vast majority of the departures time. A ray of sun was visible during the last departures.
All the planes expected for the flightplass oubviously left before… Followed by the spare planes. . Unfortunately, since a couple of years ; the most important part of the planes after taking part of the flightpass take heading to their home base. It was like tha this year also ,so the sole planes that returned were of course the Transalls….
Finally, despite the shower it was a good occasion to see some good friends and make some interesting pictures . Globalairpower would like to thanks the French Ministry of Defence and the Evreux Air Base Authorities for the opportunities making this report possible.