The Bundeswehr Technical and Airworthiness Center for Aircraft (WTD 61)

The Technical and Airworthiness Center for Aircraft (WTD 61) is a central agency responsible for all types of aircraft flown by the German Armed Forces. It was established in 1957 and is located in Manching, close to Ingolstadt at the Danube River in Bavaria. It is responsible to ensure that only safe and capable flying equipment is distributed to the flying units.

In order to fulfill this task, WTD 61 is participating in all manned and unmanned national and international programs involving the German military. The required collaboration involves civil and military units of the armed forces, test centers, research institutes, universities and program offices, both national and international.

With the introduction of the Phantom F-4F into the Luftwaffe in 1974 the Technical and Airworthiness Center for Aircraft, formerly known as Testing Site E 61, was equipped with two of these aircraft in order to develop required performance data and to widen the conventional air to ground weapons spectrum. An additional aircraft, tail number 38+13, was detached to the Center in the late 1980ies from Fighter Bomber Wing 36 “Westfalen”, when further improvements to the combat capability of the F-4F were required.

Last flight of a German Phantom
The very last flight of a German F-4F was executed 2013 July 30th by tail number 38+13, which by then had flown a total of 4.801 hours at WTD 61 alone. LtCol Ritter and LtCol Geisse were the crewmembers. With its special paint job 38+13 provided an impressive background for the rock band Voltraid and their fine “Phantom Song”, commemorating the “Phantom´s” final farewell.