Air-to-Air: 50th Anniversary of the Hellenic F-4 Phantoms II

Best experience of my life. The combination of all my passions: airplanes, flying, military jets, travelling, sunset, good food and a great team. A big thank you to the AviationPhotoCrew that make those kind of mission possible.

At first, the weather was not cooperating. They had to cancel the morning flight to Kalamata where we would have seen the Hellenic trainers. Our best chance was to fly directly to Andravida, home of the 338th Squadron.

After a one-hour long flight we landed safely and met the pilots. They even offered to do a little tour to see some Phantoms on the ground. However we did not have permissions for pictures on the airbase.

After a mandatory stop by their merchandizing store, we had to scramble to the Skyvan. Some weather cells started to threaten the mission.

Hanging out at the back of the plane, the takeoff was quite impressive. Once up in the sector, we started circling, playing with the clouds, waiting for our special escort.

As expected from the briefing with the pilots, the Phantoms were only able to do passes at first. Fully loaded with fuel they were not able to maintain low enough speeds to lock on behind the photo ship.

With the sun getting lower and the planes lighter, we got some great opportunities as they could fly slow enough to stay behind the SkyVan for a long time.

Then it was time for a last pass and then we went our own ways, the Phantoms landed back in Andravida as we headed back towards Tanagra.

The flight back was magical. We were able to watch the sun disappearing under the horizon and as we switched to IFR we even flew through some clouds which was truly a surreal experience with the door still open.

But it was not the end of the surprises for the day. As the surrounding storms lit up to skies from time to time, we flew over Tanagra but they wouldn’t let us land there for some technical reasons. So we were diverted to Elefsina airbase.

After spending more than two hours out on the open ramp, we began our descent and it was a relief to feel the air get warmer as we flew over the port of Piraeus just before landing.

On the ground we taxied and parked just beside some C-130s, once again a surreal feeling, being there at night on a new airbase. We were then escorted out of the airbase except for the Skyvan and pilot who had to sleep there.