Welcome

A few words to welcome you to my website.

This website is not a site about myself, but rather a site browsing the ten years I spent in the Belgian Air Force as an NCO career technician.
I was based for 10 years at the 1st All Weather Fighter Wing of Beauvechain, as an engine specialist on an aircraft that marked and stills marks its time, the General Dynamics F-16 ( Now Lockheed Martin).

I would like to honour the Air Force, that has been an excellent school, as well as from a technical point of view and the people that it allowed me to meet ; people with whom I had memorable times, at work as well as during leisure. Several of them will most probably recognize themselves in the different articles and pictures  that I have taken during my ten years of service.

Some of us have unfortunately disappeared since I left the F-16 intervention in December 1988. I’m sure you’ll appreciate even more finding a number of them in the pictures on this site.

Most of the presented pictures, especially the ones illustrating the period from 1979 until 1989, are unpublished and have been taken using an Olympus OM1, a reflex camera in 24x36 format dated 1976. Nobody talked about digital reflex cameras at that time.

The site contains a small foreword, where you’ll find the index of this picture book. The rest will be divided in different chapters representing my career year to year from my enrolment until my departure to new horizons at the end of 1988.
An important section is also devoted to the 1Wing history, starting in Octobre 1946 with the return of the 350 & 349 squadrons from Fassberg and ending with my arrival at Beauvechain in Septembre 1979.

I wish you a pleasant visit.

Serge Bonfond

NEXT : Foreword    

(The site is still under construction. Please check the "Flash Info" tab for the latest update)