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Think about Greece and you think about an ideal holiday destination, warm weather, friendly and welcoming people, great food and so much more. As an aviation enthousiast Greece stands for a country with exotic opportunities if you bring your camera with you. It’s the land on unicorns and once more we took the Skyvan photoship to Tanagra airbase to fly the aerial photomissions for another edition of the world-famous Athens Flying Week. |
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Traditionally our first day brought us back to Kalamata, where we had the chance to fly with the trainers. Unfortunately the M346 Silver Hawk suffered a birdstrike but landed safely back home. We tried a suggestion from the pilots to picture the T-6 from the Daedalus Team not over the bay area, but the mountains instead. Very good move and super photos! | |
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| Back in Tanagra we had our first sunset photoflight with Dutch Rush and the eagerly awaited CL-415 Canadairs. Last year we had a truly epic flight, and this time we had a two-ship for another memorable session. Several waterdrops were included much to the delight of the photographers onboard the Skyvan. |  |
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| On the second day our focus was fully on the home teams for the first flight. We had the pleasure of welcoming two Rafales and two Mirage 2000, those four jets flew an amazing series of manoeuvres for us. The F-4 Phantom is top of the foodchain for the fanatics, but the Rafale and Mirage 2000 are right up there as well. One of the many reasons why our projects in Greece are so popular and high in demand! Last year we got 1 BK 117, this year 2! | |||
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| The first foreign jet action came in the shape of two Eurofighters from Germany, followed by another 2-ship. The Zeus team brought this time the F-16s without the conformal tanks and so we got to shoot a nice variety of the F-16 again. | |||
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| Austria sent again two PC-7s, regular participants to Athens Flying Week, also those pilots are always in to fly the spectacular manoeuvres for us. From the French Air Force we had the pleasure to welcome the Rafale Solo Display Team, with the demo jet adorned in a fantastic new paintscheme. | |||
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| Our day was not finished yet, as once again we would get the opportunity to capture two waterbombers, but this time the very rare CL-215s, radial engines baby! In the last light of the day the EMB 145 radar plane joined the Skyvan for another sweet sunset photoshoot. | |||
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| Friday we started early, very early and a bit of a premiere for our Hellenic photomissions, a real sunrise flight! Our two subjects came from the historic flight with the premiere of the original T-6 and of course the popular Spitfire. The weather conditions were ideal and nobody was complaining we had to start that early. As an extra we got another T-6 – the modern trainer – hopping over the clouds, with smoke. | |||
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Unfortunately that ideal weather did not last, as our next flight with the helicopters was quite bumpy. Flying at a lower altitude we encountered too much turbulence to make it a smooth flight. We did catch the Kiowa and Apache from the Army, and also the historic T-41 in formation with the Tecnam gave it their best try, but our next planned flight for the Hellenic Navy had to be cancelled. Always safety first. Fortunately the conditions got much better throughout the rest of the day, and so the Skyvan took off for another mission, target the Italian Air Force AW139. After a long day we most certainly deserved that dinner by the bay! |
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Saturday is the day that we visit the airshow to meet and thank all the pilots that flew for us, and would still fly for us on Sunday and Monday for the departure days. We hit some bad luck on Sunday, as the photoship had unfortunately a mechanical issue. It gave us time to prepare a very action packed Monday to make sure all photographers were happy. We had a lot on the list, so camera’s ready for the T-6 and T-6 II, flying solos and a unique formation, the Spitfire and F-16 also with a two-ship, the Embraer 145 joining the F-16, the Pipistrel, the two-ship Silver Hawks, the Navy Seahawk, the Kiowa from the Army followed by the two Apaches. Also the Italian AW139 joined us again. |
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As a biiiig surprise, the F-4 Phantom would have flown also behind the Skyvan, but while we were taxiing out for the photomission we got the sad message on the radio that the Legend had experienced a hydraulic leak upon start up and so yes that was of course a disappointment, but it’s part of the operational life of any jetfighter. Fortunately we got confirmation that also in 2026 the Phantoms will continue to grace the Hellenic skies, and so we got something to look forward to! | |
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