Operational Integration Exercise 2004 Kleine Brogel

Kleine Brogel airbase organizes a Combined Air Operations exercise for many years now and 2004 was no exception for that matter. This would be one of the last public apearrance for the mighty Mirage IV and also for the russian build Mig21. It still amazes me how they do it to get such a great and nice variety of aircraft each time. The weather this year was terrible with lots of rain during the morning which kept us hiding under the trees for most of the time to wait for the weather to improve. Around noon it stopped raining but the coulds didn't want to disappear but nevertheless we got some very nice oppertunities to take some very nice pictures of the participants. This event saw for the first time aircraft of our new NATO partner Lithuania who came with an Antonov 26 and a L39. The Italians send for the first time their secondhand F16ADF to participate and for support they had brought the trusted G222. The whole event had a lot of special painted aircraft. The germans had sent their special Tornado and the french a Mirage F1B and the danish a F16BM which had been painted this way to celebrate the wedding of the crownprince.