Toulon : 2013-09

We took a field trip to Toulon in southern France to visit some bases and see what the Air Force and Navy can do. We stayed in several places and for me, it was the Grand Hotel Dauphine.

We first visited an air base which had KC-135s, Mirage 2000s and some base-defense missiles. Above are pics of a KC-135 engine with a remake on the left, original on the right.

The KC-135s have the wingtip refueling pods which give them the capability to keep the boom and also use probe and drogue. I took these pictures of their power-generating propellers because I liked how they looked against the sky.

I dig the camera on my smartphone and I thought this panoramic turned out well.

The French air force has their own missiles for base defense. On the left is the Crotale. The Crotale was near a pretty cool hangar (should've taken a picture). On the right is an end of the hangar.

Our next visit was in the bay right there in Toulon. It was actually a good visit - probably the best welcome by all of the branches. Here's another panoramic - this time, an amphib ship. Below, some guy using the telescope on a frigate, and on the right, the all famous Charles de Gaulle porte-avion (aircraft carrier). It's their only one and it does a pretty good job sitting in the harbor.

The next stop was a static demonstration of several aircraft.

I haven't seen the Rafale much so I took some shots of the front because 1) the canards are kinda cool and 2) the back end doesn't look very good to me.

Another shot of the Rafale's nose and the tale of a chopper (of which I've forgotten the name)

On the left is a tail section of a plane I had never seen - the Breguet Atlantic. This thing was bizarre, and big. It has a bomb-bay door, bubble windows, a glass nose, visible rivets and seems like an airplane that changes to do anything people can think of. You can see the front below. Above right is a Gazelle just taking off after a refueling demonstration. The petrol demonstrations were the funniest part of the trip - no refueling actually took place. I guess it's safer that way.

 

This was at the last place we visited (with the petrol demonstration). It was just next to our buses and I thought it perfectly represented the last base and demonstration. Just some metal i-beams. Not too impressive, but important I guess.