This years edition of the NATO Tigermeet wa held at Kleine Brogel airbase in Belgium just over the dutch border near Eindhoven. The general public would have the oppertunity to visit this event during the spottersday which should take place on friday the 18th of september.

Most events that take place this late in the year are confronted mostly with bad weather but this time the weathergods were in our favour the entire day. I had decided that I would buy my ticket upon arrival and before I went to see if the weather would be suitable and check on internet if the participants promissed had been showing up. Arriving around 8 in the morning the gates were already open and the lines before the ticketoffices were huge with some 1000 spotters waiting to get on base. After some 30 minutes I arrived at the flightline where Patrioulle Suisse had been parked and from there it is a short walk towards the paralleltaxitrack.

The spotters were in for a treat with the first aircraft taking to the sky well before 0830 and a special area had been made between the runway and taxitrack to bring us even closer to the aircraft during landing and take-off.

Nice to see that the new wannabe members were also present with there hardware. It would have been nice if the boys from Lechfeld (JBG32) which have a reputation of making beautiful specialpaints would have had also a bird like the guys from Schleswig(AG51) and also the spanish Hornets didn't have an aircraft with a special livery but Lechfeld did turn up with the celebrationbird to celebrate the 40th birthday of the PA200 Tornado.

Sad to see that the guys from Portugal weren't present with their Alphajets and F16's from the otherside of the Channel 230sqn of the Royal Airforce were absent aswell. Next year this event will take place at Volkel airbase in the Netherlands and will be organised by our own Tigersquadron 313. Hope to be able to visit this wonderfull event again and hope the weathergods will be in our favour once again.
 

 

Jan Eenling© 2006-2010