Never trust the forecast!
Returning to Andravida for a third Iniochos Spotters Day, I spent the week nervously looking at the weather forecast. The previous two trips had involved Saharan dust, a thunderstorm and a mighty deluge, that I’m surprised I still haven’t dried out from.
Packing wet weather gear for a trip to Southern Europe in early spring is always advised, but fear not, we didn’t need the pack-a-macs and waterproof trousers as the sun shone for a brilliant day on base with typical Greek hospitality (more on the BBQ later).
The day started early with the COAP crew departing our hotel very early. I hadn’t managed to get a good nights sleep, a combination of the room being warm and locals riding un-silenced scooters around the area in the early depths of the morning. Grumpy was an understatement! Thankfully our hosts in the hotel turned on the coffee machine and caffeine was gratefully ingested.
As usual, the queue outside the main gate was pretty long, and we finally started moving inwards after about 90 minutes of waiting. Fair play to the Hellenic Air Force as the system for processing entry on to base was smooth, with each nationality being split between four tents.
As usual we were ferried down to the Control Tower by bus, no split positions this year due to the massive amount of people present, around a 1000. Initially our group managed to find a spot just behind the first line on the rope, little did we know that those individuals would stand on their stools despite having a perfect unrestricted view, guess the nationality??
Later on we moved to a much better position along the flight line with no idiots stood on stools on the rope! Why do they do that?
First movement of the day was from 338 Mira and to F-4’s performing a ground attack demonstration, sadly the sun was in front of us, so it meant for challenging conditions. Thankfully the sun moved throughout the day and conditions became less challenging.
Swag was, of course, available and between movements we descended upon the various stalls like locusts in a plague! I think the Snacko’s did very well out of us! I know they did from me.
Throughout the day we had multiple movements from most of the nations participating, of course one of the highlights being Indian SU-30’s, with their unfortunate near vertical take offs. Next time guys, KEEP IT LOW!!! In all we were treated to 10 Phantom movements from the home team. If I recall we didn’t see any UAE Mirage’s though, so slightly disappointed with that.
At lunchtime the hosts provided an excellent BBQ. A choice of Souvlaki or Pulled Pork (Baby Pig as they called it!) Drinks from an icy container that was once an F4 fuel tank. All at a very very cheap price – RIAT take note!
The afternoon’s movements meant the sun was gradually creeping behind us and the mountains in the distance were becoming clearer and clearer. Finally I was able to get the iconic Andravida shot with the mountains in the background.
We were finally chucked off base at 6pm, having been there from 8am.
It has to rank as the best Iniochos I’ve attended, despite fools on stools. The weeks action wasn’t over though as we had a few days up in the mountains to come. Little did we know what that would bring.