Naval Wing 3 Nordholz - P-3C ORION 60+05 "50 Years" special paint

High value 250 g/m² silky luster paper poster at the size of DIN A3 (420x297 mm, 16 1/2 x 11 3/4'', DIN A2 and DIN A1 optional) with aircraft scheme and textual descriptions. All texts in german. All sizes larger than DIN A3 will be printed freshly. Therefore allow 1-2 weeks delivery time.

Background

Navy Aviaton are all flying forces of a country which belong to the naval forces. They operate from land or from ships for the purposes of the Navy.

While other nations recognized - in comparison to others - early the importance of such forces (e.g. France 1888, Sweden 1903, Russia 1905, Italy 1908, Austria-Hungary 1911) the imperial German Naval Aviation was rather late set to service May 3 1913.

With the begin of WW-1 the imperial "Marine" (german for Navy) owed ca. 35 airplanes with Kiel-Holtenau as their central base. Marine airships attacked England with bombs and delivered important air reconnaissance results for the Marine. In the Baltic Sea steamers were modified as mother-ships and operated to attack the coasts of the Baltic Sea with airplanes.

During the Nazi-German re-militarisation starting in 1935 the german naval aviation was January 27 1939 - according to Göhrings motto "everything that flies belongs to me" - incorporated in the Luftwaffe. Accordingly poor and inefficient were Luftwaffe's "war at sea" operations for the german Marine analyzing them after the war.

Because of the missing prove of value and because the Marine had to operate very often without the support of naval aviation during WW-II, the new German Marine (Bundesmarine) got from its start 1956 again its own naval aviation forces. Actually was the aviation division temporarily the largest partial kommando of the fleet. During its hightime it owed 5 naval flying wings with up to 200 airplanes and helicopters. Uncommon was the high number of up to 121 fighterbombers from the types Hawker Sea Hawk Mk 100/101, Lockheed F-104 G Starfighter und Panavia PA200 Tornado. The Poeples Marine (Volksmarine) of the former German Democratic Republic GDR received rather late in 1963 own naval aviation forces.

Since the reunification of Germany in 1990 the naval aviation forces, which included at that time also the Volksmarine units, have been drastically reduced. Until 2005 all remaining fighterbomber were given to the Luftwaffe, and their flying wings disbanded. Naval Aviation Wing 1 (MFG-1) in 1993 and MFG-2 in 2005. The Flotilla of the Naval Flyers was set out of service June 30 2006 and the remaining wings put directly under the Fleetkommando.

In the course of a general realignment of the german armed forces all naval flying forces were concentrated on Nordholz airbase near Bremerhaven and October 8 2012 the Kommando of the Naval Flyers was redeployed. Only Two MFGs (Marineflieger Geschwader) remained. One is MFG-3 "Graf Zeppelin" which is responsible for the base Nordholz and equipped with 8 long distance sea surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft P-3C "Orion" and two Do-228 for the fight against sea pollution through ships. The second one is MFG-3 which operates the on-board helicopters and is responsible for search and rescue operations on and off sea.