LUFTWAFFE HONOURS TRANSALL WITH A SPECIAL LIVERY
At the end of the year, the German Air Force is going to retire the last Transall C-160D military transport aircraft which served the German Luftwaffe for over 50 years. On this occasion, one of transall’s (50+40) from the Lufttransportgeschwader 63 (LTG63) based at Hohn Air Base in Schleswig-Holstein received a special livery honouring the workhorse of the German Air Force. The aircraft received a special "Goodbye Tour" paint job with the years, each under a wing 1968 and 2021 and the titles "Weltweit im einsatz", meaning "Deployed all over the world". With this special livery, the LTG63 wants to pay homage to the more than five decades of the service history of the C-160 in the Air Force.
900 man-hours and 400 litres of paint were required to paint the colour design of the template onto the real aircraft. The LTG 63 intends to send the aircraft on a big farewell tour across Germany as planned from summer onwards.
The Transall was due to be retired long ago but because the successor A400M had to struggle with massive problems longer than hoped, the Transall C-160 remained in service with the Air Force, and its deep, sonorous humming can still be heard from far and wide through the Rendsburg-Eckernförde district. The Air Transport Squadron 63 in Hohn is the last Bundeswehr squadron to operate the C-160D.
Photos: Luftwaffe
