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between 1989 and 1990 it all started at Soesterberg AB, on a hill
which was surrected especially for locals to view the operations
of the based aircraft. In the middle of many viewers who witnessed
the take-offs and landings of F-15's, F-111's and F27's a number
of loyal visitors slowly began forming a group of friends. By placing
their bikes in a circle the youngest created their own spot on
this hill. On this spot the group could drop their luggage: binoculars,
scanners, cameras, etc. As the group grew larger they moved to
the bottom of the hill where you could find them sitting on chairs
and stones, sometimes under the trees to cool down in the shades.
The summer of 1990 was a HOT one, with temperatures between 30° and 35°C. This resulted in swarms of terrorizing wasps attracted by the trash cans on top of the viewing hill. The group of aircraft spotters retaliated by smashing many of these creatures and trying to keep the hill as tidy as possible. A spectator ironically called them "Hillkillers" and this was adopted as the name of the group. The atmosphere was informal: decisions were made by the entire group and until 1994 no one had to pay contribution. There was always someone prepared to organise journeys to aerial events in or outside Holland. If the number of travellers was too large to be transported by their own cars, they simply rented a minivan and split costs. From 1994 the group started to get more formalised with the introduction of a small membership fee, which was used to finance the ever present hot coffee carried by one of the members and to make membership cards. These latter were needed when they were invited by the Air Force to visit an airfield and had to identify themselves at the gate. During a meeting of all the members on the 25th of June, 1997, we decided to become an official Spotting Group. On the 30th of December "Spotting Group The Hillkillers" was officially registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Currently our group consists of 100 members and has transformed in a well organised organisation: we have our own magazine called "Rotorslap" which is issued four times a year, we have an official meeting once year to discuss all sorts of organisational topics, group visits at Dutch and foreign airbases are organised by our travel department and we have our own ebsite, www.sghk.nl. (Extract from "Vlieg er eens uit - Geschiedenis van de Hillkillers", by our group historian Jacques Dumont) |