D-666 (aka “The Beast”) in special color scheme makes a tour of popular low flying area’s in The Netherlands to celebrate 75th anniversary of the “Grizzly” squadron.
The 298 Squadron of the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLu, Royal Netherlands Air Force) was established on Apr. 16, 1945. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the social distancing restrictions established in the Netherlands, the big 75th Anniversary party planned to be held at Gilze-Rijen Air Base, home of the squadron, was cancelled. Instead, the special painted CH-47D Chinook D-666 flew a long navigation trip in the Netherlands with two 10 minutes stops in the Low flying areas where photographer and friend Marco Ferrageau had the opportunity to take the shots you can find in this post. In fact, the Dutch Government did not enforce a total lockdown and people can go outside provided they adhere to the 1.5 meter distance rule.
The aircraft sports the special livery made by graphic designer Jeroen van Veenendaal and applied to the Chinook by the painters of the 980 squadron of Main Support Base Woensdrecht. A dragonfly (the unit’s symbol) is featured on the left hand side of the rear fuselage while the Grizzly, the unit’s radio callsign, is on the right hand one. The paint was applied to the Chinook by the painters of 980 Squadron.
The RNlAF uses 17 CH-47D and earlier-standard F-model Chinooks (11+6), with a total of 14 new CH-47F examples ordered.
