Athens 2023

[Grant Lamontagne]

Megan on a rocky outcropping!
https://s.insta360.com/p/95d0cd0a9f41e22312fe89ae862ced0e

Note that I am standing in the "wussy section."

When the retired tourist bus showed up I snapped a quick pic while Megan and our tour guide ran away.
https://s.insta360.com/p/f7aea0a37066a3f9b7e50a5fa378250d

Def

[Farmer X]

Note that I am standing in the "wussy section."

That's where I'd be, too.

[Huntsman]

I think it is very cool that I got a Spartan on my Greek trip- great little coincidence for the Socials, right?
It was even cooler that we took it right to Sparta, and even stood on the hill that the last of the 300 died defending.

Yeah - That really is amazing - A SAK with history to be kept for ever

Closest I got was a couple of SAKs I bought in Switzerland.
Although the Matterhorn Tourist Series SAK I bought in Zermatt in the shadow of the Matterhorn was pretty good.

I also saw one today that was used in a James Bond film in the 80's.   

Yes - I think I remember that

[kkokkolis]

Originally, there were no stairs, for safety reasons. People and products were entering and exiting through the hook.

[SteveC]

Wow !   

 How's the ankle holding up ?

[Grant Lamontagne]

Wow !   

 How's the ankle holding up ?

I don't care what the government says, drugs are good.  Everyone should go out and do lots of drugs.

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

Who says vacations aren't educational?

There is a lot of military history here, but some is a lot weirder and more recent than I thought.

For example, on the way back to Athens from Meteora today we passed something that Google calls the "Secret Plane Site."

Well, it seems like not a very good secret if it's on Google, right?

Fortunately we happened to be going right past it anyway, but even so we weren't prepared to find a fighter jet sitting in some dude's yard.

I instantly recognized it as either an F-5 or F-20.  I could never really tell the difference between the two of them, which is understandable since the F- 20 is an updated version of the F-5.

A little bit of Googling later and I had my answer- it is an F-5, and I know that for a fact because it exists.  There were only 3 prototypes of the F-20 built, and I doubt very much that any of them were accidentally left in some dude's yard in a nowhere spot in the mountains of Greece.

My initial guess was that this was a Greek fighter that had been stored in a strategic location during the Cold War, and was possibly forgotten about, but my visits to Wikipedia shows me that the Hellenic Air Force never used F-5's.  They use the (IMHO much greater) F-4 Phantom II and Mirage 2000's.

Micah was nice enough to point out that the fighter is wearing French colors, but more Wikipedia-ing shows France never used the F-5 either.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, only the US Navy (the reason they stood in for MiG's in Top Gun), the Chinese, Koreans and Iranians ever used the F-5.

Out of all of those, only the US (Carrier group?) and Iranians would have been close enough to accidentally misplace a fighter in some dude's yard in the mountains of Greece.

So, who the smurf does (did) it belong to?

Why did they leave it there?

How the smurf did it get left in some dude's yard?

Why is dressed in French colors?

How/why is it even on Google?

I wish Homer was still around to document this one, because I have a lot of questions.

Def

[kkokkolis]

In fact, we used the F-5Α for years, lots of them. The roundel colours are Greek, Blue White Blue (Cyan). French is Red White Blue and British is Blue White Red. There are old fighters in a lot of places, near my house there is a Mirage F1.
Regarding F5, we bought 55 F-5A during 1965, 17 RF-5 during 1970, 20 F-5A during 1975, 9 F-5A during 1986 and 10 NF-5A/B during 1991 (the 1986 and 1991 batches used). Total 111. They were withdrawn after 2001.

[Grant Lamontagne]

You are correct- it sort of looked blue white and red in some of my photos, but now that I look closer I see that it is indeed blue, white and blue.

How did they end up in random locations?

What other planes have you used that are not listed on Wikipedia?

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

The Spartan in Athens has a new friend- this Opinel No. 2 I found at a shop in Meteora!

A little known fact- I carried an Opinel No.2 in the watch pocket of my jeans throughout much of my teen years!

https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,10872.0.html

@victorinox @victorinoxnorthamerica @opinelofficiel @opinelusa #opinel #opinel2 #opinelinox #opinelinox2 #aspartaninathens #victorinoxspartan #athens2023 #multitooldotorg #multitoolforum #edc #edctool #edcknife

[kkokkolis]

You are correct- it sort of looked blue white and red in some of my photos, but now that I look closer I see that it is indeed blue, white and blue.

How did they end up in random locations?

What other planes have you used that are not listed on Wikipedia?

Def

They are, in my version.

Retired:  Supermarine Spitfire, F-86 Sabre, Douglas C-47 Skytrain, Grumman HU-16 Albatross, Sikorsky H-19, Bell 47, Dassault Mirage F1, Lockheed T-33, Republic F-84F, Convair F-102 Delta Dagger, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Northrop F-5, A-7 Corsair II, and the RF-4E

Active Fighters: Dassault Rafale, Mirage 2000, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-4 Phantom II

Active Support: Lockheed P-3 Orion, Embraer E-99 AWACS, Lockheed C-130 etc

F-35 in the near future.

The most beloved airplane is the Canadair CL-215 and 415 of course.

[kkokkolis]

How did they end up in random locations?

Def

They aren't random. Either they are put there in memory of a fallen pilot, or they are museum material. There are 2 in Faliron and many in the Military Museum in the centre of Athens and more in the Hellenic Air Force Museum near Athens in Tatoi.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Interesting, as only the museum ones are listed on Wikipedia.

And yes, when it comes to water bombers, Canada is the country to talk to.  I hate to use the T word while in Greece, but there is a reality show about a company called Buffalo Airways that sold two of them to Turkey and had to fly them from the Yukon across the Arlantic.  This was challenging as these are short turnaround aircraft, not long distance haulers.

The Turkish Pilots then bellied one in during training.   

Def

[kkokkolis]

Greek forests, Turkish forests, Canadian forests, they all are forests. I hope they'll use them well. It's the most usefull plane by far.

[Huntsman]

The Spartan in Athens has a new friend- this Opinel No. 2 I found at a shop in Meteora!

Aha - Even though your Spartan has clearly had a hard life - He is only a teenager !!

https://sakwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Victorinox+Tang+Stamp+Guide
Last but one line in the top section I reckon!!

PS. Thanks to Max and KK and the team for this brilliant page

[Farmer X]

Nice Opinel, and the lesson on Greek military aircraft was great, too!

[Huntsman]

Who says vacations aren't educational?

Totally agree - I think vacations should always be educational
Otherwise what's the point of travelling ?   

And the best thing to learn about and experience is the 'foreign' food .... and drink!   
Although the aircraft lesson was pretty fascinating!!
But then I was never a lie on a beach and get MacDonalds holiday kind of a guy!!

PS. The KK mentioned in my previous post was the other one - Not the KK in this post

[kkokkolis]

Guess where I am now!

[kkokkolis]

I finally met the chief! A great man. That's going to be a whole chapter in my autobiography...

[Grant Lamontagne]

Hahaha!

It was great to meet you!

I am sure the honor is all mine, and that it will be a very boring chapter of your autobiography!

Thank you again for the gifts!  Meeting you and sharing your wonderful country and city are excellent gifts already!  Some of these jokers would have me arrested for setting foot in their areas!   

Def

[Farmer X]

 

[Aloha]

 

[enki_ck]

I was wondering when you two were going to meet up as it seems your trip is getting close to the fly home point. Glad to see you two together.

And yes, those Canadian water bombers are very popular and loved in Croatia too, lots of action for them every summer. We call them Kanaders though and most folks don't even know where the name came from, they think it's a name for water bombers

[McStitchy]

Hah... coool!  I should hhave just taken off work and fly to Athens 

...and get fired by my wife and my boss 

[Aloha]

Group meet in Athens 

[kkokkolis]

Group meet in Athens 

You're all welcome!

[Grant Lamontagne]

While I am hardly an expert, I can say if you ever have the opportunity to go to Athens, you absolutely should go to Athens.  It is well worth the trip, regardless of what corner of the planet you are coming from.

For Megan and I, we are a bit worn out- we did the Acropolis Museum yesterday and and the National Museum of Archeology today and we are both exhausted, and I think tomorrow we are going to concentrate on picking up some souvaniers and things for the folks back home.  So far I have picked up some little Spartan helmet keychains for my brother and his boys, and a Leonidas helmet for my father as our leader- plus his name is Leo, so it works.  I also got him a silver cross pendant at one of the monasteries.

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

One of the few drawbacks to this trip- the wifi in our AirBnB kinda sucks.  I don't know if that is typical of Athens, if the owners have cheaped out with crappy wifi or  if there is just something wrong with the modem here, but I actually sent the above post last night.  It just seemed to go through now.   

Anyways, I actually logged in to say something resoundingly positive and saw that post hanging.   

What I wanted to post was that I got up this morning, went across the street to the coffee shop, bought 2 koulouri (kind of like Bagels that have been rolled out a bit more to create a bigger loop), a bottle of water and a double cappuccino for Megan, and my mind was blown that it was only three euros and fifty cents.  That's $5 in Canadian money or $3.80 USD.

I don't know about where you live, but a double cappuccino alone in Halifax will cost you probably $5, the koulouri (well, bagels anyway) will be probably $2-3 each and the bottle of water would likely be at least $2.  So, the same breakfast in Halifax would cost at least $11 and probably more.

And, I'd have to go a lot further to get it. 

I love Athens.

Def

[SteveC]

I finally met the chief! A great man. That's going to be a whole chapter in my autobiography...

 

[Gareth]

Loving the updates on the trip boss.  My wife and I did a trip to Crete many years ago and loved it.  You've got me thinking it's about time we went back to the seat of democracy.