Beginning with 30.05.2024 Kurt will start a massive Europetrip with about 15.000km on the road.
He will start his trip in his second hometown Gomel, Belarus and will go through Poland, Czechia, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finnland, Estonia, Latvia and back to Belarus.
On his way he planned to visit far more then 100 aviation related places like monuments and museums, various airports, military exercises and also airshows.
To keep YOU up to date about his trip he will post daily updates to our Facebook page and also here in the trip diary.
Additionally to that he is also tracking his route per GPS. He will upload his latest GPS data every day to the below attached map.
As you can see, he already added the way from Graz, Austria to Gomel, Belarus to the map.
We hope you will like and follow the trip. If you have feedback, please contact us via Facebook or Instagram PN or via our contact form here on our website.
From here on we give the word to Kurt and his travel diary!
First of all welcome to my trip through Europe. It will be my biggest road trip so far which will cover more than 15.000km and 13 countries.
As you can see I already travelled to my second home Belarus in the last days. As even this is a very long trip, I had to stop two times. One time in Ostrava, Czechia and one time in Brest, Belarus.
Maybe you wonder why I am starting here. The reason is easy. My wife and my daughter will spend the summer here at my wifes family.
I plan to start my trip now on the 30.05.2024 with the first leg to the EU border between Brest, Belarus and Terespol, Poland. After that I searched quite a lot monuments on my way to the Pardubice airshow 2024.
My next update will be in the waiting zone of the border. See you then.
As announced in my last post, I travelled to the Border today. I am standing now in the queue to the border waiting zone in Brest, Belarus.
Unfortunately there are about 200 cars in front of me, so I will wait in front of the border quite some time.
But I expected that already, so I am well prepared with food, drinks and big power banks to run my laptop and other devices.
I will use the time to upload a bunch of pictures into our database. You can check it out later if you want.
The road from Gomel, Belarus to Brest, Belarus was quite okay. Only light traffic and good weather. There was even one aviation related highlight. While I was refilling my car, two Mi-24 attack helicopters of the Belarusian Air Force flew above the gas station in very low altitude.
Something what you maybe find interesting is, that the GPS got jammed for some time during my trip recording. You see it when you have a look at the map below.
As I will stand here quite some time, I will give you another short update later today.
Good morning followers, I did not post a second update yesterday, as there was simply no update.
I was waiting before the border waiting zone till 05:00 local time.
Now I am finally in and in about two hours I should get released to the real border control. Lets hope the procedure there will go a bit faster. In total I am now waiting already for 24 hours.
But as said yesterday, I used the time for some works on the homepage and picture uploads.
I uploaded all pictures which I had ready on my laptop and I included a small statistic about the registration and photo count to the database start page. Have a look, we already have more than 900 pictures in our database.
After the border I will immediately drive to Pardubice, Czechia with planned 18 stops at different aviation monuments.
I will update you in the evening about this part of the trip.
As promised the second update for the 31.05.2024.
Unfortunately the border took much longer then expected. I came out of the border on the Polish side at 21:30. So after in total 34,5h.
This means that it was already dark and so I could not get my first 3 monuments on my way close to the border. There was no light near them and I have no tripod with me at the moment.
But this is not so bad, as I will be there in future again for another travel to Belarus.
As it is already quite late, I stopped for today somewhere before Warsaw, Poland. You can check the map below.
After a nap I will continue my travel to Pardubice, Czechia and hope to get the rest of the monuments on my way.
See you tomorrow.
Today I drove from Poland to Pardubice, Czechia and it was the first day of the trip with some aviation photography finally.
Everyone who watched the stories on Instagram and Facebook already saw the aircrafts and helicopters what I got today.
I planned to get 24 aircrafts today at 18 locations. As usual (specially in the east) not all were possible to get. Some were already just scrap on a scrapyard, some places were closed and so the aircrafts not reachable and one I was not allowed to photograph (inside Military facility).
But in total I still got 18 out of 24 aircrafts what is still pretty good.
The map is also update with the route of today and the monuments I got.
Tomorrow is airshow time. Lets hope for good weather.
See you tomorrow.
Here the update from yesterday.
I had a great day at the Pardubice Airshow 2024. It was a very nice show again and I think I managed to get some good pictures. There will be also a report about the show later in the summer.
After the show I managed to drive directly home to Graz, Austria. So I was a little bit ahead of schedule, as I planned to arrive here only today at lunch time.
The reason to drive home before continuing my trip is a technical inspection of my car and that I need to prepare my car with the proper equipment for the longer part of the trip. So you can call it a technical stop.
I updated also the map with the route from yesterday. Since leaving Graz, Austria on the 25.05.2024 I already made 4100km.
Next update tomorrow.
Here the update from yesterday.
I had a very long ride from Graz, Austria to Payerne in Switzerland.
I stopped at two museums und some monuments on my way. Specially positive was the visit of the JaboG 34 Museum in Memmingen, Germany. Former pilots and aircraft technicians are running the museum. They made it possible for me to take proper puctures of the three planes inside of the shelter. They even let me climb onto the wing of the F-84 to get a better angle. The guys are really outstanding and I can highly recommend to visit them. On 30.06. they have a summer festival where they will open the shelter gates and pull out the F-84.
The museum in Bad Ischl, Austria is also quite ok, but the aircrafts outside are already in a very bad condition and the fences are located so, that you can't take proper pictures of all planes.
And from the monuments I nearly got all what I wanted. Check out the Instagram highlight story to see them all.
I updated also the map with the route from yesterday. It was close to 1000km.
Todays update.
Today I drove from Payerne, Switzerland to Ramstein, Germany after the Alpha Uno Exercise.
As I had no accreditation this time I tried to get some pictures from outside, but at the end it turned out that the exercise was extremely small. At least while I was there they only used 4 F-18s which each landed and started once on the motorway. Everything was very far away becuase of security zone. So I guesss beside some takeoff shots, it was for nothing.
But later on the way I got all my planned monuments, what is pretty nice. You can have a look on the map to see it. I already imported the route from today.
Next update will be probably the day after tomorrow, as tomorrow I will have another very long road to Jagel, after getting pictures at the current exercise in Ramstein and the visit of a big museum nearby.
See you then.
The "1 vs 1" Exercise at Ramstein Airbase was great. They scrambled approximately every 30-45 minutes each time with 6 to 8 fighters. In total I got around 40 different fighter jets in the 5 waves which I saw. The variety of the models was also very nice - F-16, F-18, F-35, Eurofighters and Rafales.
Additionally I got one C-5 Galaxy, two C-17 Globemaster III, one UPS 747 and 3 C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
They continued with the exercise till the evening, but I had to leave approximately at 1400lcl to drive to the "Flugausstellung P. Junior" in Hermeskeil, Germany.
This museums was on my bucket list since quite a long time and it was totally worth it. One of the best museums I every visited till today. More than 100 aircrafts in mostly perfect conditions. Even the planes which are outside are in an extremely good condition. I can fully recommend every aircraft lover to visit this museum. It took me over two hours to go through all the aircrafts.
After that I drove directly to Jagel, Germany. Thanks to the motorways without speed limit in Germany I could reduce my driving time from 7 hours to 5,5 hours (incl. breaks and fuel stops).
On this day I visited the first of the 2 spotter days of the NATO Tiger Meet 2024 in Jagel, Germany.
Additionally two of my AERO LENS colleagues also arrived. Roland was with me inside the base and Patrick made pictures from the outside.
From our place in the first row we got all departures quite well. Also the light conditions were pretty good in the morning. Unfortunately it was not possible to get proper shots of the landing aircrafts as they were too far away and the grass between the runways was too high. Unfortunately the aircrafts did not taxi in front of the photo area in the morning. Only one Tornado and one F-35 did this.
In the afternoon the weather was not so good anymore, but the aircrafts taxied in front of the photo area and also the helicopters flew by and made some formations. In the afternoon all special Tiger c/s aircrafts flew, what was very nice.
All in all it was a good day with a lot of good photos. I am already looking forward to Monday when the second spotter day will be.
Today I drove from Jagel, Germany to Berlin, Germany because I want to visit the Museum in Gatow. Originally my plans were different for this weekend, but as the Danish Air Show got canceled I had to look for an alternative.
On the way to Berlin I visted two museums, one place with monuments and the Interflug Il-62 "Lady Agnes".
Both museums are really worth a visit. Not the biggest museums, but both with a lot of interesting exponats. Also a lot of interesting none aviation things.
After visiting some monuments I drove to the Interflug Il-62 called Lady Agnes, which is a special monument in perfect conditions. Additionally it is located very close to the hill where Otto Lilienthal did one of the first flights of the mankind.
Tomorrow I will visit the museum in Gatow and maybe the ILA.
By the way, the map is also up to date again if you want to have a look.
Today was a very interesting day. First I visited the German Air Force Museum in Berlin Gatow, Germany. The museum is very interesting and offers a great variety of aircrafts over the full history of the German Air Force. I noticed only one jet type missing, the F-4 Phantom. I wonder if it is currently under restoration or if it is really missing in the collection. Another positive point is, that there is no entrance fee and you can even have a snack in the outside exhibition area, what is quite convenient.
After the museum I drove to the BER, to make pictures of the ILA flying display. As I did not have a ticket and as it is anyhow better to stand outside for good pictures, I decided to walk 3km to the other side of the runway. So I was standing approximately in the middle of the display box on a small hill. And you can imagine, that I was not the only photographer there. But there were also a lot of normal spectators, just looking at the displays.
While I was still walking my 3km, two German Tiger Attack Helicopters together with two NH-90 and two CH-53 helicopters did their display. It was a very dynamic display which simulated an attack scenario.
After some waiting the USAF F-35 Demo Team performed an awesome display, but of course as it was in Germany, not a complete one. At other airshows it is more spectacular. But anyhow, the display offered some very good photo possibilities.
After the F-35, the real highlight made its way to the runway to start its display. The German Air Force Tornado in 50 years c/s. And what shall I say? It was definitely one of the best German Air Force displays I saw since a long time and of course the first real display of a German Tornado. The pilot knew exactly how to present the awesome c/s to the photographers and showed in the meantime all the abilities of this old but still outstanding jet. Alone because of this display the 900km extra from Jagel, Germany to Berlin, Germany and back payed off. You can have a look on the Instagram and Facebook stories I made.
But there was one more special I was waiting for. The SeaKing with the special farewell c/s. It was quite important for me to get it because the SeaKings will soon be sent to Ukraine. And the pilot luckily presented us the c/s as good as it was possible with the already medium good light conditions during this display. He flew some close turns around the hill where I was standing at.
As small extra after the three highlights, there was a display of the Airbus A321XLR test aircraft and also an air refueling simulation with an A330MRTT from the joint NATO forces, two German EF-2000s and two German Tornados.
After the show I drove back into the direction of Jagel, Germany, as tomorrow will be the second NTM 2024 spotter day. Check out the map.
See you tomorrow!
On Monday I attended the second NTM spotter day. Again together with my colleagues Patrick and Roland. During the day I also met quite a lot other friends there. Greetings to all of them.
Despite the very bad weather forecast, the weather was quite good after a short strong rain in the morning. Takeoffs of the first wave even had partly some sun. Over the day the weather was a mix of sun, clouds and some light rain showers, but overall quite ok.
Unlike Friday, this time most of the aircraft taxied along the photographer area what was perfect for good pictures. Even the helicopters made some small (and windy) shows in front of us. Seems the organizers got some feedback from Friday and changed the procedure. A big thank to them on this place.
After the takeoffs of the afternoon wave we decided to take the bus to get outside before they come back in for landing and before the sun moves onto the other side of the runway. This was a quite good decision because from outside we got the Czech Air Force Saab JAS 39 Gripen with Tiger c/s which only arrived at that time.
All in all it was a very good day, with good photo opportunities and a lot of fun. It was also very nice to meet some friends again there.
Yesterday morning I spent another morning at Schleswig Air Base in Jagel, Germany, to get some departure pictures from a different angle.
Luckily the weather was quite ok, but cold for the departures of the morning wave. This allowed some great photo opportunities of the taxiing and line up.
After the departures I quickly made my pictures of the local gate guards, a F-104, a F-84 and a Tornado. Before the return of the aircrafts the weather turned bad and it started to rain quite heavily. So I decided to have lunch and leave.
My first stop for this day was Hohn, Germany, where I made pictures of the C-160 Transall which is located in a town near the base. I also wanted to make pictures of the gate guards there but it is not allowed to take pictures unfortunately.
My next and last stop in Germany was Husum or to be precise the entrance of the air base there. I made a picture of the gate guard there, a G.91.
After that I left Germany and entered Denmark. There I wanted to check out the Skrydstrup airbase and was hoping for some action there. But unfortunately the flying always ends very early in the afternoon around 15:00 there. This was at least the information I got from a fellow photographer. As I had no more plans for this day I drove to my hotel was located more in the east of the country to have a better starting point for the next day.
The first stop today was the Cold War Museum in the Langelandsfort. This was one of two heavily armed forts in Denmark during the cold war. They should have prevent the invasion of Denmark and the surrounding sea by Soviet forces in case the cold war would have turned hot. The museum is very interesting with a lot of information and a lot of old bunkers, towers, submarines, boats, etc. what you can enter. So also worth a visit beside aviation. But I went there as it was written that they have 3 aircrafts. Unfortunately they only have one left, the MiG-23 of the Polish Air Force. The Draken and the TF-100 are gone. But the MiG-23 is an a really good shape. It looks like you just need to start it. It's well protected in a small hangar.
After that I drove back to Skrydstrup airbase as in the meantime I gathered some information. I met a fellow photographer from Germany there and together we take pictures of the Danish Training F-16 double seater, a Danish Black Hawk and the Norwegian F-16 with Tiger c/s. It's very likely that both F-16s were used to train Ukrainian pilots. As small bonus we also got an An-124 of the Antonov Airlines what was currently there and took off after some time. Sp in total not much aircrafts but some rare ones. And all this within 1 hour. I had not more time as I already had other plans.
So after one hours at Skrydstrup airbase a had to leave to drive to the Danmarks Flymuseum on the west coast of the country. I arrived there 55min before they closed. I still managed to see the whole museum and to take pictures of all the aircraft. It would have been nice to spend more time there as the aircrafts there look so great. Everything is in perfect shape, like they just came out of service. And one important thing for photographers, there are not so much obstacles in front of the aircrafts. So you can make good pictures there. Most of them doesn't even have a fence around, so you can walk even below them. A must see museum for each aviation enthusiast.
After that I only had two more Monuments on my to-do list. They were located in the down Karup, Denmark. One was the gate guard of the local airbase, a Saab Draken. And the other one was a F-84 in front of a school or Kindergarden. The F-84 unfortunately is in a very bad shape already.
After I did all what I planned for today I drove to Aalborg, Denmark, where I will spend my night today. Tomorrow there are two Museums and some Monuments on my to-do list before I leave Denmark in direction to Norway in the evening.
Not sure if I can write an update tomorrow on the ferry, but I will try.
This day was my last day in Denmark for now. But before I left, I visited two museums in Aalborg - the "Aalborg Forsvars- og Garnisonsmuseum" and the "Springeren - Maritimt Oplevelsescenter". Then I used the rest of the time at Aalborg Airport to first take a picture of the F-104 in front of the military entrance and later to take some pictures of the standard traffic there. I was also lucky to get some military movements in this time - a CL-600, a AS 550C2 Fennec and a Saab T-17 Supporter.
Then I made myself on the way to the harbor in Hirtshals, Denmark. But not without stopping at some monuments. I visited a Draken in front of a museum and a Mi-8 inside a horse farm.
After I arrived at the harbor I had to wait for the boarding of the Ferry to Kristiansand, Norway, where I arrived after about 3h.
The first part of my first day in Norway was mainly driving to Stavanger, Norway. But It was a great experience to drive here. The nature here is like anything I have ever seen before. Norway has the most exciting nature I saw so far. After each tunnel, a new fascinating view is appearing. And I did not see all of Norway yet. I already look forward to my continuing trip on Monday. BTW the map is again up to date, if you wonder what roads I took.
After reaching the area of Stavanger I directly drove to the airport of course. I slighted missed the arrival of a Swedish Air Force C-130 and the training of a Vampire, but I came right in time to get the arrivals of the two Danish F-16. One of them was the F-16 with the new special c/s.
And even here I met two friends from Germany. I tell you, the aviation photographer community is so great. You never stay alone!
Over the day I made pictures of various arrivals and rehearsals like the Rafale, the SK-60 or the Heritage Flight consisting of a P-51, two Vampires and one F-16. Despite the very cold and windy weather, it was a day with good pictures and fun with friends.
As last activity of the day I visited the local aviation museum right beside the airport. It has special opening times over the airshow weekend, to allow airshow visitors to visit the museum after the show. And what was very special, beside that the museum is in marvelous conditions and very interesting, is that the museum opened a new part of the exhibition right on this day for the public. And what can I say? The new part of the exhibition looks so great like not much else I saw in museums so far. The museum guys did a really great job.
Today was the first airshow day of the Sola Airshow.
As the weather in the morning was quite bad with wind and rain, I decided to go into the official show ground to take pictures of the static display. After the rain stopped, it was even possible to get some nice shots of the flying display from inside, as the sun is in your back here in the morning. But I used my 200-800mm lens on my R7 APS-C camera to get some extra reach, because the flying is mostly quite far away from the crowd.
This was the first reason to change to an outside position after some time. The second reason was, that the sun is not in your back anymore in the afternoon. I changed to a small hill on the other side of the runway, where already quite a lot of people were standing, but no photographers for some reason.
Like expected it was a great place, specially for the fast jet displays, as they are flying straight over you when they turn. And you are in the middle of the action and not far away. So I changed back to my full-frame body R5 with the 200-800mm lens. It was perfect for action pictures there.
This was then my position for the rest of the show. Tomorrow I will be there probably the whole day, because you can use it all the time independently of the sun position as the planes are flying around you.
This was the last day of the airshow in Sola, Norway. As announced the day before I decided to be on the outside position the whole day. I can tell you it paid off. I got some awsome shots there. You will see it soon on our Facebook page and from tomorrow on on our website in the photo database. Have a look!
The weather was much better with more sun, but also with some more rain showers in the morning.
The show itself offered a little less program then the day before. I don't know why. Unfortunately the display line of the Red Arrows was somewhere else and therefore beside some simple formation passes nothing to take pictures of.
This was the day with the highly anticipated mountain road. And it was much better then I could ever expect. The nature of Norway is simply incredible. I think I fell in love with this country - and I still don't know the north what should be even better...
While on the way in Norway I collected two F-104 monuments - one in Kongsberg inside a company property and one in Oslo at the Kjeller Air Force Base.
Later in Sweden I also collected some more monuments. Like usual in Sweden all of them were from Saab. First was a Saab Viggen on a nicely done resting place near Trollhättan. Second place was at the F7 air base near Satenäs. They have a nice little collection in front of the main gate, consisting of a Gripen, a Viggen and a Lansen.
After that I made my way to a nice little camp site beside the sea.
Today was museum time. But before I collected the Draken und Tunnan which are placed in front of a car seller and the Draken which is located in front of the museum entrance near the street. First I visited the Aeroseum near Göteborg, Sweden. I was already looking forward to it the last days as the museum is inside an old aircraft cavern from the cold war. And It was really special to go underground to see all the planes standing inside the complex. I made a video of the first part of the museum and you can find it in the Instagram and Facebook story. Definitely a must see for every aviatiopn enthusiast.
Then I collected a Saab Lansen monument near the Halmstad City Airport before I continued my trip to the "Ängelholms Flygmuseum" at the Ängelholm–Helsingborg airport which was before the F10 air base.
The museum offers a nice collection of Saab airplanes reaching from the 40s to now. A big special is the first serial produced Saab Grippen A with serial number 39-101. The museum also offers some simulators, like for the Draken. It is really worth to visit for aviation enthusiasts. As small addition there is a Saab Draken monument close to the museum in a park. It is a tribute to the former F10 airbase.
After the museum I made my way to the last aviation related stop for the day. The Saab Sk.60 in Ljungbyhed where the former F5 air base was located. Now it is a small regional airport. What makes this monument special is that some Swedish Followers suggested us to go there under one of our Sk.60 posts. Thanks again for this. It is a beautiful monument in excellent conditions. Unfortunately the local museum was not open.
After some dinner and some resupply I continued to the port of Helsingborg to take the ferry to Helsingör, Denmark as I will visit a museum there tomorrow. Luckily it is warm enough here for car camping, so I stay at a camp site quite close to the museum. See you tomorrow.
Map is up to date too.