Goodbye to Bolkow

The last HA-15 Bolkow serving the Airmobile Forces of the Spanish Army conducted its goodbye flight the 21st of December at "Coronel Sánchez Bilbao" base in Almagro (Ciudad Real), before being officially dismissed the 31st of December.

This is how this Army's model of helicopter sais goodbye to 37 years of service. Pilots belonging to different periods of the 1st Battalion of Attack Helicopters wanted to attend this goodbye. It consisted on an display flight, which was performed being escorted by two Tigers, and also going past the water arch, as tradition of the helicopters units everytime an areoplane is welcome or seen off.

Precisely those Tiger helicopters have been replacing these last years the veteran Bolkows, which have been dismissed till at the beginning of 2017 there were only three serving. Altogether, they have accumulated more than 113.000 flying hours.

Bolkow, in its versions -armoured with missiles, of armoured reconnaissance, and of observation and reconnaissance-  have participated along these years in many national and multinational exercises, in bilateral collaborations and in missions such as the one in Bosnia-Herzergovina. Altogether, they have suffered three accidents, the last one in this operation, in 2008.