Recce Meet 2014 – BA 118 Mont-de-Marsan.

Last week the Armée de l’Air’s Base Aérienne 118 (BA 118) at Mont-de-Marsan hosted the second edition of the Recce Meet exercise, cunningly named “Recce Meet 2014”.  Karl Drage reports for GAR.

BA 118 is home to several units of the AdlA and a variety of interesting and attractive French-designed and built aircraft including examples of Dassault’s Mirage F1, Mirage 2000C and D, Rafale and Alpha Jet.

2014 will see the retirement of the sleek Mirage F1 from AdlA service, and, as such, ER 2/33 “Savoie” – the squadron responsible for organizing Recce Meet 14 – took the opportunity to invite enthusiasts from around the world to share with them on what would be one of the last opportunities for the public to get up close and personal with the type in an operational environment.

At this stage there are plans for the Mirage F1 to soldier on until mid-August, with the type featuring prominently in the Bastille Day flypast down the Champs-Elysées on 14 July.

As well as recce tasks, simulated strikes were also carried out against realistic airborne threats, and pilots, intelligence personnel and imagery analysts were all involved and challenged in the evaluation of the captured footage.

For the complete report and more photos follow the link:

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/04/14/exercise-recce-meet-2014-ba-118-mont-de-marsan-2/