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Leeuwarden April 2015
Karo-Aviation
visits Leeuwarden airbase for Frisian Flag 2015
Article and Pictures by Ronald de
Roij
The Royal Netherlands Air Force hosted the Frisian Flag 2015 live air
exercise at its northern air base Leeuwarden from
April 13 to April 24th.
The Frisian Flag exercise which took place in the Netherlands is an
annual, multinational exercise which, in its basic assumption, is to
provide air combat training in a complex environment, including
conditions that may occur in a high intensity conflict. The exercise
involved around 60 military planes from six countries, including the USA
and Germany. With aerial refuelling training is being realized at the
same time.
This year’s exercise was participated by a range of aircraft from other
European countries, including Polish F-16C/D Block 52+ and the Dutch
F-16AM/BM jets, the Finnish and the Spanish F/A-18 Hornets, the German
Eurofighters and from the USAF’s F-15C’s. The latter ones, belonging to
the US National Guard, where part of the Theatre Security Package,
deployed in Europe.
From a spotters point of few the
Frisian Flag exercise was dominated by the presence of US ANG F-15's.
The Florida 125th Fighter Wing and Oregon 123th Fighter Wing units
touched down at Leeuwarden air base earlier to take part in the U.S.
military’s Operation Atlantic Resolve. The unit's stayed at Leeuwarden
Air Base for about a month before moving on to Bulgaria.
For the 125th Fighter Wing from Florida, which represented the majority
of the approximately 200 personnel in the package, it was the unit’s
first overseas deployment in about 15 years.
It was a very big exercise in logistics for the unit's, working with Air
Mobility Command and everybody else to get all of their equipment to
Europe. In total they needed to transport 10 C-17s worth of equipment,
mostly the tools and spare parts needed to maintain the jets and keep
them flying for what’s expected to be a six-month deployment.
During the operation, the pilots also
cooperated with the land and naval forces, including the JTAC’s (Joint
Terminal Attack Controllers). According to the information released by
the Dutch Ministry of Defence, the operation took place in the Dutch,
German and Danish airspaces, with Leeuwarden AB being the main
operational base for the fighters. The fighter component also received
support from a NATO AWACS platform.
The second European Air Refuelling
Training operation took place simultaneously with the Frisian Flag
event. It is being realized for the European Air Forces by the European
Air Transport Command. Operations within that scope are being supported
by the Defence Agency, since aerial refuelling is considered to be one
of the key capabilities which are to be supported by the EDA. The
exercise involved French, Dutch, Italian and German tankers.
Carrying out a multinational exercise, with a high degree of
complexity – such as the Frisian Flag – has a significant impact on
interoperability of the NATO air forces. In the light of the situation
in the Mid-Eastern Europe, it seems that organization of such training
events is highly desirable – at a similar level, both within the scope
of scale, as well as within the scope of the multinational involvement
(involving both the US military aviation, as well as the air forces of
the Western Europe), also within the territories of then new NATO member
states
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