Karo-Aviation visit Leeuwarden airbase for Frisian flag 2016
Article and pictures by Ronald de Roij

Frisian Flag is an annual multinational exercise.

This year, the pilots from America, Belgium, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Norway and of course, Holland participated in the exercise. Around 70 aircraft from of a variety of types where involved in the operation, including the British Tornados, French Mirage 2000 fighters, Finish F-18 Hornet, German Euro fighters , American F-15 Eagles and F-16 Falcon from various countries..

Eight USAF F-15 Eagles participated in this year’s Frisian Flag, marking the second involvement between the U.S. Air Force and Frisian Flag under the scope of Operation Atlantic Resolve after the participation off the F-15 Eagle last year. Participating in the largest fast jet exercise to be held in Europe this year, joining units from other nations, giving the Eagle drivers an opportunity to fly against aircraft and forces they normally not encounter on a dally basis.

Frisian Flag

Frisian Flag traces its history from an exercise that was organized by the Dutch air force as a national exercise using its Air defense and Ground Based Air Defense units. These exercise where coordinated from Leeuwarden air base by 232 squadron, after a mission the results were debriefed with all participants. In 1992 this resulted in the exercise DIATIT, the name is a combination of the Diana (the goodish of hunt) part of the squadron emblem of 323 Squadron along with the abbreviation of coming from Tactical Integrated Training.

Integrated in this exercise is meaning that assets the Navy, Army and Air Force are combined in this exercise as combined elements of the training syllabus. As of 1993 until 1996 and AWACS was added to the scenario, which resulted in exercise named DIAWACS, the exercises main objective being the protection of the AWACS. The involvement of an AWACS was postponed in 1997 and 1998 due to other commitments of the AWACS aircraft. The exercise was renamed again to DIATIT for these two years.

After interest was shown from other NATO members, for participation in this exercise. The set op of the exercise was changed to allow for multinational participation and the name was changed again, this time in to Frisian Flag. Making the exercise comparable to the Red Flag in the United Sates and Maple Flag in Canada. With so many and diverse participants, there is a lot of experience gathering at Leeuwarden during the Frisian Flag exercises. Lessons learned from recent operations, including those of NATO and PfP air forces over Libya and Afghanistan, but also from other exercises held recently, are all taken into account and integrated into the exercise scenarios.

Leeuwarden is ideally situated close to the vast training area over the North Sea in Dutch and Overland training areas are nearby to provide additional training value.

The main goal of the exercise is to get the aviators prepared to cooperate during a variety of conflicts, and within a wide spectrum of threats present in the operating environment. It is very important to speak a single language during such operations.

Remaining training goals include: planning the composite air operations (COMAO) sorties in a realistic contemporary battlefield environment, in line with the NATO standards; perfecting the tactical skills required for COMAO sorties and debriefing; establishing cooperation between the NATO member states; and carrying out relevant air-refueling training

With typically 50 jets participating in each of the twice-daily missions, getting them all airborne from a single runway took more than an hour. Air-air refueling aircraft were available to top up the fuel tanks to prolong aircraft endurance.

All the fighter aircraft carried an instrumentation pod which provided positional data of every aircraft which was replayed at a mass debrief attended by all the pilots. The analysis of the tactics and targeting, which can include displaying an individual pilot’s perspective, prompted frank discussion on the various elements of the overall mission. The data can show, for example, whether a simulated missile shot would have hit its target.

131st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron

The US Air force has sent a dozen F-15C fighter jets and some 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands, under the designation of the 131st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, along with airmen from Bases in Germany, will operate as a Theater Security Package (TSP) to conduct training with NATO allies and partners.
The 131st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron consists off units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California.
The reason for the theatre security package is the increased Tensions between Russia and the West in March 2014 after Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea jointed the Russian Federation following a referendum.

NATO eventually severed all military cooperation with Moscow over a crisis in Ukraine in April 2014. Ties further soured after the US and its European allies accused Russia of destabilizing the situation in Ukraine and imposed a number of sanctions against Moscow over the crisis in Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine.

The F-15s represented a TSP rotation, which began in the European theatre in 2015 to reassure NATO allies and partner nations of the U.S. commitment to the security and stability of Europe. The U.S. began rotating aircraft and airmen through Europe following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

The TSP will augment U.S. Air Forces in Europe's existing efforts as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve by conducting flying training deployments and off-station training with NATO allies to further enhance interoperability. The TSP is meant to meet the training needs for the U.S. and its allies, such as Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states.
Depending on mission and U.S. European Command requirements, rotations of TSP will generally last six months. While TSP missions are new to Europe, the Air Force has been conducting TSP rotations in the Pacific since 2004.

Under the same umbrella the U.S. Air Force has deployed F-22 Raptors, Airmen and associated equipment to Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, on April 11 2016.

The exercise’s main aim is for pilots to improve their air combat skills and to fly multi-national composite air operations, but some years air-to-surface missions are also included. Missions typically take place in a dense electronic warfare environment with AWACS and tanker support.

This tanker support is done via European Air-to-Air Refueling Training (EART) exercise held at Eindhoven in the Netherlands witch since a few years, is linked to Frisian Flag. Tanker aircraft from various countries provide fuel to the fighter jets over the North Sea.