Dinard in France was an airfield that I often flew to from Guernsey for a cup of coffee. It was one of our nearest French airfields and, with a permanent customs presence, we could simply file a flight plan and arrive without prior permission. There was always very interesting aircraft at this Touraine Air Transport (TAT) maintenance base but I usually didn't take photos here as even though we were airside most of the aircraft were on the opposite side of the runway at the TAT base, which I think is now run by Sabena.
Starting off in 1991 one of the few flying SE210 Caravelles was seen here when operated by Aero France International. This aircraft was later sold and flown to Colombia in 1994 but was damaged when it performed a hard landing on a dry lake bed in Mexico while running cocaine. It was operating with fake registration HK-4029X and when police caught up with the aircraft they cut-off the wings and destroyed the airframe. Such a sad end to a classic type.
Fast forward to 1992 and I found not one but two Nord N.2501 Noratlas aircraft parked here for maintenance. I was used to seeing the ex-French Air Force Noratlases parked up at Caen but to see a pair that were actually in use was great, and both were exotic air force owned. 9XR-GY was operated by the Rwandan Air Force and TN236 by the Congolese Air Force, which is the Air Force of the Congo Republic and isn't to be confused with the separate country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is its neighbour. Complicated? Yes! It is not known if TN236 is still active but it shows on the inventory of the air force currently.
Air Dakota C-47B F-GIDK is still active as F-AZOX and flying the airshow circuit. It makes quite a change to find an old aircraft that I've shot that's still around! Finally a bunch of F-27s stored here included three from Flanders Airlines - two were broken-up and one permanently withdrawn from use. The Air Guadeloupe example was also killed by the axe man most probably at Dinard.
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