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.

Jan Eenling 2008©