Phantastic phootage from Phantom Convention 2023.
After the profitable first version in 2022, on July 10 and 11, Andravida Air Base, within the Northwest Peloponnese, Greece, hosted as soon as once more the annual European Phantom Convention (PhanCon 2023). Actually, together with Air Techniques Heart and the services utilized by Greek and allied nations in the course of the well-known Iniochos exercise series, the bottom is the house of the 117 Fight Wing and its 338 Squadron, flying with F-4E AUP Phantom II jets.
The Phantom Convention was an occasion sponsored by the F-4 Phantom II Society yearly for a worldwide gathering of F-4 fans. As you may learn within the Society’s web site: “Aviators, upkeep personnel, help people, hobbyists, photographers, modelers, watchers, all joined to share experiences, replace friendships, and examine any F-4s on website. Some introduced their intensive photograph collections to share. We additionally attracted distributors specializing in F-4 memorabilia and merchandise. We labored in visits to varied flying organizations on the bottom, journeys to the flightline and close to to the runway for photograph alternatives and a visit to a neighborhood aviation museum if obtainable. The final Phantom Convention occurred in 2016 simply previous to the QF-4 retirement from service in the US Air Power.”
“The Society continues to fulfill with a scaled down model of the Phantom Convention known as The F-4 Phantom II Society Reunion. This can be a much less formal method to get collectively and can base in a metropolis with a museum or forward of a neighborhood airshow.”
With the Phantom nonetheless in service with the Hellenic Air Power, the worldwide get-together of Phantom crews and fans moved to Europe in July 2022.
This yr, our pal (and Phantom lover) Misael Ocasio Hernandez traveled to Andravida for PhanCon 2023 and, as accomplished throughout his journey to South Korea, he’s shot some actually superb footage of the Hellenic F-4E plane throughout day and evening operations. Take pleasure in!
David Cenciotti is a journalist based mostly in Rome, Italy. He’s the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of many world’s most well-known and skim navy aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for main worldwide magazines, together with Air Forces Month-to-month, Fight Plane, and lots of others, masking aviation, protection, warfare, business, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown a number of fight planes with completely different air forces. He’s a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Power, a non-public pilot and a graduate in Pc Engineering. He has written 5 books and contributed to many extra ones.
