Turkiye in the Heat? Hell yeah, mad enough to do that!
Thankfully there was no mad rush through Istanbul Airport to try and make a connection this year, but eventually arriving in Konya late at night we made our way to one of the only ‘non-dry’ hotels in town for a well earned malt, hops and wheat based beverage.
If you haven’t been to an event in Turkiye then you’ll be bemused by the organisation. We joined a large queue into the base to have our identities scanned and equipment searched. Once through the checks, which took about 45 minutes to pass through, we bundled onto buses and were shipped to the flightline.
The brilliant thing is you can get close, I mean really close to the action. We were allowed to walk on the area surrounding the main ramp and out to the taxiway.
Having been before I knew to expect rough ground so was prepared with a mat and small stool to stand and sit on.
The morning wave departed and we were treated to a wide variety of aircraft, most notably the Azerbaijan Frogfoots.
The afternoon meant moving to the far side, where we watched the Turkish Stars in their F-5’s go through their routine, then the elephant walk! Stood beside the runway the various arms present in the exercise paraded down the runway right in front of us.
The Turks took the opportunity to show off their special scheme Spook and the Turkish F4 from 111 Filo proceeded to perform a number of flypasts.
Day two and we had time to kill. A few of us from our party hired two taxis, piling in and in search of the local wrecks. If you’ve played the Video Game Crazy Taxi, when I tell you that was tame compared to our rides. Fair play to our drivers who were paid very handsomely to take us around in search of the local wrecks.
This being Turkiye, of course we found a Phantom and a Dauphin in the local Tech college. From there we headed to Turkish Stars park to find the miniature F5’s. I may have sat in one…..
One thing you aren’t supposed to do in Turkiye is shoot aircraft outside the base, which we definitely didn’t do and the kids play castle in the park wasn’t a great vantage spot.
A great couple of days chasing planes, beer and full on belly laughing!
