About Gijs Hiltermann
Born in 1952, I grew up near the air base of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. As a young boy I was fascinated by the Meteors, Thunderstreaks and T-birds flying over my house, and when I was five years old, I already regularly could be found near the fences of the air base. I remember the exercise ‘Royal Flush’ in 1959, bringing RB-66 reconnaissance aircraft and French Thunderflashes to Eindhoven, together with Swifts of the Royal Air Force.
In 1964 I started photographing. In those days mostly b&w negatives were made, colour negatives or slides were too expensive. In the early seventies I started making colour slides, although I still love to make b&w negatives.
Due to my interest in military aircraft I decided to join the air force, and in 1971 I went to the Royal Military Academy to become an air force officer. In 1976 I was qualified as a lieutenant, working as a financial controller at Gilze-Rijen air base. By that time I was able to fly an NF-5B for several times.
After many splendid years in the air force, I was dismissed in 1991 and started a business in educating managers in finance and accounting. And from 1998 to 2010 I also had a job for two days a week at the Nyenrode University as an associate professor of business economics.
I wrote quite a lot of books on financial management and management science. Since 2007 I have my own publishing house, called H&G Uitgeverij (www.hguitgeverij.nl).
In 1970 I was one of the guys starting the aviation magazine FLASH, one of the first private magazines made by local spotters. In the eighties I published a number of books, under which ‘West German military wrecks & relics’ and some issues in the ‘Vliegend in Nederland’ series, one about Dutch Thunderstreaks and one about Dutch T-birds.
I am still busy with military aviation, visiting air shows, NATO exercises, museums or other interesting events. A selection of the finest photos that I made during the last 60 years can be found at this site. I hope you enjoy it. Not all photos are made by myself, but in all cases I owe the original slide or negative.
The F-84F Thunderstreak always had my special attention. Together with my friends Frank and Hans I run the website www.thunderstreaks.com. Please take a look if you also love this type of aircraft.