Military Jets Photography: April 2013

The Luchtmachtdagen were held on June 20 and 21 2008. This year the show was held at Leeuwarden airbase. The organizers had attract some interesting participants and a nice mix of military and civilian acts.
Highlights of the static were offcourse the Turkish and Hellenic Phantoms but also the Hungarian Fulcrum was a delight to see.
The flying display suffered from a complaint from the surrouding neighbourhood which meant that all loud aircraft could only fly after midday. This meant that the morning was occupied by helicopters and propeller aircraft.
But the morning programme had some attractive performers like the Canadian CP-140 Aurora, the Belgian Sea King, the Royal Navy Merlin and off course the home team with their yellow AB412SP or Tweeties like they call them. On the civilian side we had a UH-1H Huey, P-51D and the OV-10B Bronco which jumped out.
After the lunch break it was time for the famous Airpower from the RNLAF. This shows what it does in operational areas. A massive take-off by lots of F-16s, simulating an air to ground attack on the airfield, involving AH-64 Apaches, Cougars and Chinooks. The RNLAF air-to-air tanker KDC-10 gave a great, low pass flyby with gear down. Finally the Dutch F-16 Demo team gave their display.
This was followed by the Polish aerobatic team Team Iskra, the NH-90NFH (in future Dutch markings but still officialy from Eurocopter), the Italian aerbotic team the Frecce Tricolori, a Spanish Hornet (which had to abort his demo because of a forgotten remove before flight pin from the landings gear), a Belgian F-16 and as last the French Mirage 2000C.
All in all was this years edition of the Luchtmachtdagen worth a visit with a nice mix from civilian and military acts. It was a shame that the fast jets could only fly after midday because then the sun had already dissapeared behind the clouds.

F-16AM Portuguese Air Force 15122

MiG-29UB Hungarian Air Force 26

F-4E(AUP) Hellenic Air Force 71743

Harrier GR7A Royal Air Force ZD378/26

RF-4E Turkish Air Force 69-7521

RF-4E Turkish Air Force 69-7501, 69-7521

F-16AM Netherlands Air Force J-876

CP-140 Canadian Air Force 140101

OV-10B Amicale des avions anciens de la Drôme F-AZKM

Hunter T8C Stichting Dutch Hawker Hunter Foundation G-BWGL

AB412SP Netherlands Air Force R-03

Sea King Mk48 Belgian Air Force RS01

OV-10B Amicale des avions anciens de la Drôme F-AZKM

PC-9M Slovenian Air Force L9-64

Merlin HM1 Royal Navy ZH846

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UH-1H Huey.co.uk G-HUEY

CP-140 Canadian Air Force 140101

KDC-10 Netherlands Air Force T-235

AS532U2 Netherlands Air Force S-419

F-16AM Netherlands Air Force J-060

F-16AM Netherlands Air Force J-055

TS-11-bis Polish Air Force Team Iskra

NH-90NFH Agusta Westland CSX81697

EF-18A Spanish Air Force 12-08/C.15-50

The Frisian Flag exercise started in 1992 and the format changed and increased every year. Since 1998 the massive involvement of foreign aircraft made it a Flag exercise. A small version of the well known Red Flag in the USA or Maple Flag in Canada exercises. Throughout the years the number of participants and their origins varied.
The objective of Frisian Flag is an offensive and defensive training in a realistic scenario, with emphasis on tactical decisions and the effective integration of all available asset and systems. The Frisian Flag is an exercise by pilots and for pilots, all pilots bring in their wishes and demands for the scenarios. There is no high-level command center that defines the missions, all missions are created and implemented at Leeuwarden by the participating pilots. The demands for the missions are gathered by the Frisian Flag staff and the specified missions are assigned to the daily mission commanders whereby every pilot will have a role as mission commander once during the exercise. Two missions are flown every day, during daylight time only. As the mission preparations take a lot of time, there are double aircrews present at Leeuwarden; when the morning missions are flown, the afternoon missions are prepared and briefed. With a total of around 50 aircraft flying twice a day, 80% of the aircraft will fly in the ‘blue forces’ during a mission, while the other 20% will fly in the opposing ‘red forces’. There are no predefined roles for the pilots, one day they fly defensive in the ‘blue forces’, the other day they can fly offensive missions in the ‘red forces’. After each mission a debriefing takes place, whereby the learned lessons will be incorporated into the future missions, There are no restrictions on the capacities and skills of the participating pilots, each country may decide on the skill level of the pilots and on their objectives for the exercise.