Lakenheath "Excalibur VII"

[3Greens]

Fantastic, evocative, set, Keith
‘AR’ Warthogs: they didn’t last long, did they, just like ‘WR’ F16’s didn’t
Great to see the Boss Vark

Thanks for posting
Paddyboy

Thanks very much Paddy, just found some of those 'WR' F-16Cs too
Hope you're keeping well
Best regards
Keith (3Greens)

[3Greens]

Brilliant as usual Keith - brilliant scans and content

Great to see all those types and tail codes again from the best times . Any more ‘111s as just love these?

Hope you are keeping well mate - been too long!

Thanks very much Darren. Have really enjoyed working back through these great old memories.
Got some nice 'swingers' lined up mate

Keeping well thanks very much mate and hope all good with you
Must have a catch up at the 'Hall sometime.

And a big thanks to all for the comments and memories that were triggered

Best regards
Keith (3Greens)

[Bilvo]

Great stuff Keith, thanks for posting! Really does bring back the memories of these fantastic events, I think my first was Excalibur VI which was the only edition the 527thAS WR F-16's attended before the unit disbanded. Unfortunately they were parked out of bounds for photographing and could only be snapped through the bus windows as we drove past!

Seems incredible that they bused us over to the ramps to photograph (most of!) the 70 odd participating and visiting aircraft before busing us back to spend the rest of the day sat near the pinao keys at the 24 end watching them all depart for a ridiculous price of somehting like £1!?!

Oh for a time machine...

Fantastic, evocative, set, Keith

‘AR’ Warthogs: they didn’t last long, did they, just like ‘WR’ F16’s didn’t

Great to see the Boss Vark

Thanks for posting

Paddyboy

I think the Alconbury A-10s lasted a few more years than the aggresor '16s did Paddyboy but not by much!

[Keflavik69]

A real nostalgic post. These exercises were always a good reason to come over to the UK to see large numbers of aircraft and a lot of flying activity at the air base. Thanks a lot for sharing these images and bringing back memories of days where we were not aware how lucky we were.
Arnold

[roughcutter]

Great set of images Keith, I certainly felt like crying that day - bl**dy camera croaked on me , expensive lesson, always carried two bodies after that bitter experience.

[XR713]

Thank you for sharing. those days were fantastic even though we didn't know it at the time.

[Canberra TT.18]

Great set.
Great memories.

Only Excalibar I ever visited.
Being a poor student at the time no pictures just numbers. So thanks for the memories.
Coming over for a weekend UK (main event Middle Wallop IAS) we also did this one.
Sitting in queue on Saterday morning because we knew you could enter the base. Still wonder how we knew all information pre internet.
was indeed very simple pay a pound and enter. No further checks.

Great day if I remember well we were only on base for maybe 1-2 hour and great score. I have
8 A-10s AR/WR
1 C-12
6 F-4/RF-4s SP/ZR
11 F-15s BT/CR
24 F-16s HR/RS/SP/TJ
5 F-111/EF-111s UH no LNs!

And on to RAF Marham to score Victors

[Philwinward]

I was told that originally the base commander was not going to charge for entry. However some crazy old legal ruling said that if you did not charge for entry you had no legal control over the visitors.!! That same legal ruling inferred that by paying for entry you agreed to the sites terms and conditions and they could restrict access and even remove you as they thought necessary, hence the £1 entry fee.

[Everglades]

Superb

[Blue fox]

I remember the good old days.

[SW Sky Blue]

Great memories once again

[paulspot]

Hi All,

I don’t suppose anyone has a log for this particular Exercise please?

Many thanks in advance.

[Nighthawke]

My log from 20th (apologies for any formatting problems - copied and pasted from old Word document)

A-10A 79-220/ARg 10 TFW
A-10A 80-143/WRp 81 TFW
A-10A 80-167/WRr 81 TFW
A-10A 81-948/ARg 10 TFW
A-10A 81-979/ARg 10 TFW
A-10A 81-990/ARg 10 TFW
A-10A 82-654/WR 81 TFW
A-10A 82-658/WR 81 TFW
F-4G 69-7268/SPy 52 TFW
F-4E 69-7293/SPy 52 TFW
F-4G 69-7582/SPm 52 TFW
RF-4C 68-565/ZR 26 TRW
RF-4C 72-152/ZRg 26 TRW
RF-4C 72-153/ZRg 26 TRW
F-15C 79-021/CRo 32 TFS
F-15C 79-026/CRo 32 TFS
F-15C 79-028/CRo 32 TFS
F-15C 79-035/BTb 36 TFW
F-15C 79-039/BTb 36 TFW
F-15C 79-047/BTb 36 TFW
F-15C 79-069/BTb 36 TFW
F-15C 81-047/CRo 32 TFS
F-15C 81-048/CRo 32 TFS
F-15C 84-001/BTm 36 TFW
F-15C 84-013/BTm 36 TFW
F-16C 84-1250/HRb 50 TFW
F-16C 84-1282/HRb 50 TFW
F-16C 84-1295/HRb 50 TFW
F-16C 84-1310/HRb 50 TFW/"10AMU"
F-16C 85-1411/HRb 50 TFW
F-16C 85-1415/HRb 50 TFW
F-16C ?????/HRm "50 TFW"
F-16C 85-1444/RSr 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1448/RSr 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1450/RSr 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1484/RSr 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1486/RSm 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1546/RSr 86 TFW
F-16C 85-1552/SPy "52 TFW"
F-16C 86-227/SPy 52 TFW
F-16C 86-229/SPy 52 TFW
F-16C 86-315/TJb 401 TFW
F-16C 86-329/TJb 401 TFW
F-16C 86-345/TJm 401 TFW
F-16C 86-360/TJb 401 TFW
F-16C 86-367/TJb 401 TFW
F-16C 87-242/TJr 401 TFW
F-16C 87-337/TJb 401 TFW/"16 AF"
F-16C 88-401/TJ 401 TFW
F-16D 85-1511/RSr 86 TFW
EF-111A 66-039/UH 42 ECS
F-111E 67-120/UHr 20 TFW
F-111E 68-041/UHr 20 TFW
F-111E 68-059/UHr 20 TFW
F-111E 68-078/UHr 20 TFW
F-111F 70-2392/LN 495 TFS
F-111F 71-884/LNg 48 TFW
F-111F 71-890/LNg 48 TFW

[paulspot]

That was quick, really very much appreciated.

Thank you Nighthawke.

[starfighter]

More visitors over a weekend, than you now get in a whole year 🫣🫣🫣

[Nighthawke]

Glad to help.

Those were the days...

[capercaillie]

My log from 20th (apologies for any formatting problems - copied and pasted from old Word document)
F-4E 69-7293/SPy 52 TFW

Great post and what an amazing collection of kit based with USAFE at the time.

Your F-4 above would also have been an F-4G Nighthawke, all the SP F-4Es had gone replaced by F-16s by 1990, and this one was at Air Fete in 1989 as an F-4G.

[Nighthawke]

Thanks for that. The document was probably untouched in years and I didn't have time to extract from my database. Will crosscheck to make sure everything is corrected.

[Bilvo]

My log from 20th (apologies for any formatting problems - copied and pasted from old Word document)


F-16C ?????/HRm "50 TFW"

To update your log, the serial for the "50th TFW" commanders jet with multi colour fin-band is 84-1250, which can be read off on Keith's photo in this post (and from my own log from the saturday).

[Tiger 1]

Great list Nighthawke

Very appreciate the list of serials

Regards.
T1