Germany: Phantom Pharewell

[sprocky]

Sad day: one more nation retires the Phantom. Yesterday at Wittmund AB a ceremony was held including flying display. I'll miss the smokers in our skies It will be replaced by the cleaner Typhoon.
I think I keep them flying in my sim for some more time.

Edit:
A nice video of that day can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdW0IaH2Bz4

[Victory103]

All my childhood favorites are leaving the blue skies forever. Remarkable machine and zeee Germanys are taking the Rhino out in style!

[sprocky]

Born in East Germany my childhood favorites were gone (in Germany) shortly after reunification.

But still I have some good memories of the Phantom from my military time in the 90's. The retirement of the Phantom and the introduction of the remaining Typhoons will go along with the reduction of the Tornado fleet. Several air bases have been disbanded already including the one I worked on: NAS Eggebek. Today only three Tornado bases remain: Jagel, Büchel and Lechfeld. While Jagel and Eggebek were operated by the Navy Jagel was handed over to the Air Force in the early 90's marking the beginning of the end of the jet aircraft era in the German Navy which finally ended in 2005 when Eggebek was closed. While Germany had a combined fleet of about 450 aircraft (Phantom + Tornado) in 2003 we will end up with about 260 aircraft (Tornado + Typhoon) in 2017. The skies will be much quieter here...