Luchtmachtdagen 2011 - Leeuwarden AirBase
Oct13Written by:
Thursday, October 13, 2011 
Hello to all,
now upcoming the veyry first content post for the relaunched Amsterdam-Spotter.
It has been a while and I know, for some of our visitors it is not something new I present in the following, but I think it is still worth of posting these pictures again.
The 2011 Air Force Days will be the last AirForce Days until 2013, where the Dutch AirForce will then celebrate their 100th anniversary in Volkel.
But now to the present, the Air Force Days 2011 were again a fabulous event which was organized pretty well and had some highlights to present.
The very first highlight already has been experienced, when I was not even close to the Airbase with the parking spot on the Motorway between Harlingen and Leeuwarden as they have simply closed down a whole motorway to accomodate all the parking cars of us visitors. The airforce offered a free Bus shuttle to the AirBase from where ver you have parked on the long Motorway strip which provided a smooth way of parking and getting without stress to the Airbase itself.
The first Display I have experienced was the solo display of the Begium AirForce F-16, again a fabulous show has been delivered:
Some minutes later, the Dutch AirForce started it's Apache Solo Display Team, again, incredible what they can do with these Apache's:
A Fly-By together with the Hawker Hurricane and the Solo Display F-16 of the Dutch AirForce:
Note the many different speed capabilities of the single Planes / Helicopters, while the Apache is almost flying it's top speed, the F-16 is close to a stall and the only one flying "comfortably" is the Hawker.
Flare action by AH-64:
And a very close one of the Solo F-16, RNLAF:
Finnish Air Force, F-18 "Hornet", Solo Display
And finally landed:
Royal Navy Lynx Display Team, they were making a really cool show and the whole demonstration looked more like ballet dancing than flying military helicopters:
Italian Air Force, Eurofighter "Typhoon" Solo Display, incredible how maneuverable this plane is with these canards, a real dogfighter:
Flying Bull, MBB Bo-105, also here incredible to see what a good pilot can do with a helicopter:
An my personal favourite of that Day, loud, ugly and smokey, Polish Air Force MiG-29 "Flogger", the last dinosaur of the cold war, now fighting for the former enemy coalition (NATO):
Turkish Air Force, F-16 Solo Display, last year they still had a formation team with F-5 "Tiger", the premiere on Dutch grounds for this display:
And finally, at the very end of the flying show day in Leeuwarden, the fabulous and famous "Patrouille de France", as dream of myself has been fulfilled by seeing this team flying:
These formations they flew were awesome, i am still impressed by the accuracy they have flown their programme:
And the greetings to all Frisian's could not have been left out:
Goodbye "Patrouille de France" hopefully we see us again in 2013:
