Like every year the Royal Netherlands
Airforce organizes an airshow to show the public what its doing with
the taxpayers money.This years edition was staged at my homebase
Leeuwarden.On the thursday before the airshow the major
spottersocieties in the Netherlands were given a chance to send over
members to attend at the arrival of most aircraft on base. I was
also present with my local society the Aviation Group Leeuwarden.The
weather on thursday was something with big ups and downs,during the
morning we expierenced heavy cloudcover and poor lightconditions and
even a heavy shower but in the afternoon the weather improved and we
even got the sun to show itself and dry our clothes.
Unfortunately when we had to leave several
participants hadn't arrived yet like the turkish RF4's and the spanish
Hornets and the british Harriers but nevertheless it was a very nice
oppertunity to take decent pictures from arriving aircraft.The previous
edition at Leeuwarden airbase had caused major trafficproblems around
the airbase and for that reason they shut off all surrounding land
around the airbase to prevent that from happening they now invited us to
come on base and get a firstclass seat during arrivals.
Normally I try to visit both days during
this event but due to a wedding I wasn't able to attend on the
friday.Things I missed during this weekend were the display of the
french Mirage2000 and the spanish Hornet and the complete morning
session due to the fact that getting out of bed the next day after a
good party isn't as easy anymore as it has been.Together with my
daughter I arrived around noon at the airbase again on saturday to shoot
some aircraft I had missed on arrivalday and make my way towards the
displayline.
At 1 o'clock the
airpowerdemo would start and this is always a good moment to shoot
some actionphoto's of the participating aircraft.In total 10 F16's
joined for the demo together with 2 Apaches and 2 Cougars and 1
Chinookhelicopter.Due to the fact that a lot of material is on duty
in Aphganistan we didn't see our Hercules participate and only 1
Chinook could take part.When the spanish Hornet did try its demo he
had to return because his left leg didn't retract(crewchief forgot
to take out a safetypin during check-off).
Around the clock of 4
me and my daughter did another quick scan around the flightline and
go home afterwards to get some hard needed rest for ourselves.Next
years edition will be at Volkel airbase again because at Gilze-Rijen
they are not ready yet with building the new homes for the choppers
that will move from Soesterberg to Gilze-Rijen.Hopefully the weather
will be good for the next edition and lets hope that they will find
as much nice aircraft as they found for this years edition.
