Giampaolo Tonello visited the German air bases hosting Elite 2006 electronic warfare exercise. He reports on his trip and presents us with these superb photos of the aircraft he spotted.

Also in 2006, the electronic warfare exercise called “Elite” was held in Southern Germany and involved different bases like Lechfeld (base of JaboG 32), Manching (base of WTD 61) and Landsberg (base of LTG 61).

Lechfeld was the main base for this exercise and hosted different foreign aircraft like Spanish EF-18 Hornets, Polish Su-22 Fitters, British Tornado GR.4s, Turkish F-4E Phantoms, and Turkish and Greek F-16s. Manching hosted the Finnish and Swiss Hawks, while Landsberg hosted the support aircraft and helicopters. The exercise took place at the Heuberg range.

As soon as we knew that the JaboG 32 organized a photoday for this event on May 11th, we booked it and at 07.00 AM we were ready and waiting at the main gate. First we must thank the JaboG 32 organization as there were approximately 400 photographers and we were able to stand along the taxiway and take beautiful pictures of aircraft taxiing to the runway and taking off or landing without any problem. The sun also played its role this time.

The activity started very early in the morning with the first German Tornados followed by all the other participants all morning long until at about 11.30 AM when the last Spanish Hornet (performing a test flight due to an engine problem the prior day) landed.

In the afternoon we decided to drive to Manching where we saw the afternoon mission of the Hornets (we were very pleased to see the Me 262 replica making a test flight as well) and the morning mission on the next day.

In the Elite 2005 report you can find more information about the Electronic Warfare exercise, so I only described my two-day trip to Southern Germany hoping all of you will enjoy the photos.