Since Monday, April 13, large American planes have been flying over the skies of Lorraine, especially in Moselle-East. These are military precision dropping exercises that take place every year. Many onlookers make the trip to observe them.
Above Grostenquin, Saint-Avold, Morhange (Moselle), and many towns in Lorraine, American planes! They are stationed all year round at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, one of the largest US Air Force bases in the world, and they conduct exercises. Since Monday, April 13, as social media reactions confirm, these are training exercises that have been happening for years. At each pass, in the late morning and early evening, curious observers gather to watch them.
“It’s impressive!” Among them is Nicolas Muller, a resident of Saint-Avold. When the 23-year-old young man knows that the planes are approaching Grostenquin, he drives there. “It’s quite impressive!,” he says, “because these are planes that we are not used to seeing.” They are transport planes, Lockheed C-130 Hercules with four propellers. “We have the chance to observe planes from another country that come to train with us. That’s cool!”
With a friend, Nicolas created the Facebook page “Les guetteurs du ciel-Grostenquin” at the end of 2025. They both post information about these planes and their routes that they spend time observing using a geolocation app: “They descend very low into the Vosges, sometimes even to Alsace, and come in line above the Grostenquin runway to make their drops.” Precision drops that he has witnessed: “often heavy cargo drops, but also, more rarely, troops. The first time I saw them was last year,” he recalls.
Passionate about aviation since watching the movie Top Gun in his childhood, Nicolas also shares all his photos on the same Facebook page. In addition to American military exercises, he mentions seeing all sorts of planes throughout the year: Dutch Apache, Tiger helicopters, and even Mirage 2000 from the French army.
“We have the impression that Grostenquin base is abandoned, but in reality, it is still very much in use by the armed forces, and that’s what we wanted to share on our Facebook page,” explains Nicolas. He is pleased to see that many other people comment and also share their photos below his to continue telling the story of the Grostenquin air base.
Contacted by ICI Lorraine, the French and American armies did not wish to communicate the end date of these exercises. The former Grostenquin air base still accommodated nearly 6,000 caravans and 26,000 travelers during the evangelical gathering “Vie et lumière” in 2025. In late January 2026, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced to the National Assembly that there would be no more gatherings since military exercises are planned for the summer at the base.
