Germany trip: Fliegehorst Nörvenich
“No good plan survives first contact with the enemy”.
In this case, the “ennemy” was public holiday. During the evening of June 17th, we found out that there was a public holiday on the following Thursday in many parts of Germany. We had planned a late Wednesday departure from Munich and a relaxing drive to our next hotel outside of Köln-Bonn, visiting Fliegerhorst Nörvenich Thursday morning. That plan was now invalidated since the base is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, and would be closed for “Corpus Christi”. After checking with a few German spotters on Instagram, we decided to leave Munïch very early Wednesday and head straight to Nörvenich, hoping to catch any afternoon flying. A visit to Nörvenich in 2022 resulted in 6 hours of driving (Amsterdam and back) and no photos due to a “no fly day”. We did not want to have another “blank”!
When we arrived at spot 4, we found several spotters there. We had parked quite far away (following the information in the Spotter guide) and were surprised to see several cars parked right at the spot. The presence of other photographers was a good sign for the afternoon, we just had to wait. We confirmed with the others that the base was not only closed on Thursday, but it was also closed on Friday. We simply had to get results now, there would be no second chance.
The fire truck appeared, the sound of jets started, and we all got ready. First to taxi were 3 Tornados from Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader (TaktLwG) 33. This fighter wing is normally based at Fliegerhorst Büchel, 105km away. TaktLwG 33, the Luftwaffe’s nuclear strike wing, was moved to Nörvenich in 2022 due to major base renovations at Büchel and is scheduled to return home in February 2026.
The “home team” of TaktLwG 31 “Boelcke” was next, with 4 single-seat Eurofighter Typhoons going out for a training mission. TaktLwG 31 is named after famous World War 1 fighter ace Oswald Boelcke, a pioneer of fighter aviation who taught the legendary “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen.
The Tornados and Typhoons returned to Nörvenich roughly 90 minutes later, by which time we had run out of snacks and water. With the end of flying, we hopped back in the car and made our way to the hotel, stopping for Currywurst along the way. All that was left was to decided what to do with Thursday.
(Click on an image to enlarge)
