Iace Report Day 1. Day 2

Transcription

1 Iace Report 2012 Day 1 Finally it was here: the first day of the International Air Cadet Exchange, IACE. It all begann early in the morning at Grenchen Airport. There we had the unique chance to fly in a Super Puma / Cougar of the Swiss Air Force. It was an amazing experience, which everyone enjoyed. After a 90 Minutes flight, we landed at Egelsbach Airport. Then, we drove to the Frankfurt International Airport by bus, where we met the other cadets. Most of them tough travelled directly to Amsterdam, so just the two Swiss guys and a German cadet had to travel to holland by car. After a five hours drive, we finally arrived at Wodensrecht Airbase. There we met the other cadets and spent the rest of the day eating dinner and playing card games. Day 2 On the second day, we visited the ESA Space Expo. We learned a lot about the European space programs and the satellits Europe maintains. We also received a lot of information about how it is to live in space. As I'm interested in everything that has to do with space, this was an awesome visit. At the evening we attended the welcome dinner, where everyone had to present himself in 30 seconds, which was quite funny.

2 Day 3 On the third day, we went to the city of Delft. As the Netherlands are bigger than Switzerland, we always had to travel one to two hours to our destinations. Luckily, this never was a problem, because we were so tired from the previous days so we slept in the bus. Having arrived at Delft, we were welcomed with an English breakfast (which is common in the Netherlands, as we found out later) in the university. Then, we went on a tour around the university, where students study aerospace engineering and other (non-aviation) subjects. They have quite a few interesting projects, like a car engine which consumes one liter fuel on 400 (!) kilometers. Unfortunately, this car only manages to drive 30 km/h. In the afternoon, we had time left to visit Delft by our own, which I spent with the other swiss cadet, a Belgian and a German girl and a Dutch junior escort. In the evening, we played soccer despite the rain. In fact, I can not remember the weather being dry. Our clothes got so wet, everybody stayed and we played for two ours, which I think was quite good for the team spirit. Day 4 Finally, we were allowed to fly for the first time in these two weeks. In the morning, everybody was wondering about the israel cadets: despite one Cadet being an F-16 Navigator and the other one working as a king air pilot, they have never seen a glider before! I found this quite funny. In the morning, we visited the Dutch military museum, which was very nice but everybody just wanted to go flying. At the airfield, we were allowed to have a seat in a two-person glider (in my case the duo discus) and finally took off. The launch was accomplished by a winch, so we accelerated from 0-100km/h in merely two seconds. The launch and the flight were magnificent. I found some nice thermals and we were able to climb to just over 1000m. From there, I could see Den Haag and even Amsterdam was visible. In the evening, an air force pilot showed us some aerobatics with the glider. He even made a 160 km/h low pass overhead the field, which was absolutly stunning.

3 Day 5 On the fifth day, we visited Amsterdam. After a two hours ride by bus, we arrived at approximately eleven o'clock. The first thing we visited was an art museum, called the Rijksmuseum. As I and a few other cadets were not that interested in art, we just spent 15 minutes there and thereafter we went for a nice drink to the Hard Rock Cafe. After the museum, we met our guide for the city tour. He was a retired KLM MD11 Captain. So it was nice to talk to him and listen to the stories he telled us. We spent the whole afternoon with him, walking through the city. After a delicious dinner in an Argentinian restaurant, we went for a boat tour. At midnight we headed back home to the airbase. Very tired but happy, we went to bed. Day 6 This day, we were lucky, because we were allowed to sleep until 9 o'clock. Everyone could catch enough sleep and we were ready for the day. After a 2.5 hours bustrip we arrived on a field. Everyone was wondering what we were going to do there. Then they informed us, that this was a historical field: decades ago, in the 2. World War, the british parajumper had landed there. Afterwards, we visited the museum and the famous bridge of the market garden battle, what took a whole day. In the evening we drove to a quite nice airfield called "Terlet", where we had dinner. Unfortunately we did not have the possibility to fly. Nevermind, thanks to the wonderful wheater, it was a great day.

4 Day 7 On the seventh day, we went to Volkel AFB to say hello to some pilots of an F-16 squadron. We had a short presentation about the squadron itself and the airforce in general. After that, we had the chance to see a complete F-16 startup and we could ask the commander our questions. After the startup, we were driven to the runway by bus, where we could enjoy the takeoff of some F-16s. Some pilots decided to do a low pass over us, so they lit the afterburners and raced by about 20m over our heads. That not only felt scary, but absolutely awesome. I'll never forget this takeoff in my life! Day 8 In the morning, we visited an NH90 SQN. The NH90 is a brand new helicopter which came to the Royal Dutch Airforce a few months ago. It was quite impressive to hear about all the new technologies and to see this huge helicopter. Thereafter the plan was, to visit a museum about the Navy, but (luckly) we changed that into a visit to the beach because it got over 30 degrees celcius. Day 9 The morning was free, which most of us spent with sleeping until 12. Me and the other swiss cadet got up at nine to play tennis at the sportcenter of the AFB. In the afternoon the programme was to visit the Apache and the Chinook SDN. We heared a presentation about the two helicopters and saw a few movies about them inflight. After that we could visit both helicopters and I could have a seat in the Chinook cockpit. Later in the evening we had a look at the RNLAF historical flight museum. A member of the club showed us all the planes, which were really stunning. After a drink at the bar of the club, we got a list with our hostfamily's address. Day 10 Today was special, because we only had a 5min bus drive. The reason for that was, that we visited the base we were living and sleeping in, the Woensdrecht AFB. This base hosts the basic flight school. We had a presentation about their aircraft, the PC7. For me this presentation and the walkaround was quite interesting, because if I manage to pass the further levels of the military pilot selections of the Swiss Air Force, I am going to fly this airplane, Another great thing was, that we could fly the PC7 Simulator. Some of us were successful, some of us crashed. When I was on the approach towards Woensdrecht AFB, I thought there were two runways and I approached the left one. On short final I realised that this was just the taxiway and I made a swingover towards the "real" runway, which brought me some jokes and nicknames from the instructor and the other cadets ;-)

5 Day 11 On the eleventh day, we travelled to Rotterdam, after having packed our bags for the hostfamily weekend. We visited the port authority and the city of rotterdam. Rotterdam is impressive, because of its big port unfamiliar to Swiss people. The port is the biggest in whole Europe, and it is getting even bigger! After having enjoyed the afternoon off, we drove to Rotterdam airport, where the hostfamilies where waiting for us. My hostfamily was very nice, their son was attending the IACE in the UK during my time in Holland. After having dinner with my hostfamily, we started the long journey to their home, which was going to be mine for the next days. Day The next two days were the hostfamily days. I spent the weekend at a very nice hostfamily, which made it possible to see a typical Dutch family life and I could also taste a variety of typical Dutch food, which mostly tasted quite okay. We also spent a day at a rollercoster park, which was quite similar to the Europapark. I loved it! Day 14 Today was the day I was looking forward to. It was our KLM-Day. In the morning we visited the Schiphol Airport Authority and the Jet Support. After having had lunch at the KLM canteen, we split the group in halves. The first group started to visit the KLM Maintenance, where we could see the big airplane (B747, MD11, B777) which simply was breathtaking. I will never forget the size of the engines of the B777. They are massive! Thereafter we changed groups and we could fly a B737 at the KLM Flight Training Center. We had a funny instructor, so these 20min were a lot of fun. After landing the B737 on Zurich's runway 14, we were quite satisfied and a little proud of ourselves. Unfortunately, this was our last day in Woensrecht. At the Farewell BBQ we enjoyed our last evening on the AFB. Day 15 Day 15 was the last day of the IACE. It was hard to say goodbye to the other cadets, because we had spent so much time with them and we have had so many unforgetable moments together. After exchanging presents and saying goodbye we drove to Frankfurt. Due to a traffic jam we were quite late and just as we arrived at Frankfurt airport we continued our way to Egelsbach, where the Cougar was waiting for us. We had an awesome flight to Grenchen and we even did some aerobatics overhead the Jura. It was magnificent! The IACE in the Nederlands was just one thing: It was incredible! I have had so much fun and the program was really interesting. I want to thank the Aero Club of Switzerland, the Swiss Air Force, the Royal Nederlands Air Force and everyone who made this possible. It was an awesome experience!

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