A great 2 airshow days, the Luchtmachtdagen (Airforce days) at Leeuwarden airforce base.

This year it was Leeuwarden's turn to organise the airforce days. The program looked promising, despite lacking some of the more familiar participants at the show.

On to the review.

Route to the airshow:

From around the airbase big yellow signs with a black plane on it guided you to the parking spots if you travelled by car. If you travelled by means of public transport, you could make use of the shuttle-busses that drive you to and from the airbase, these would drive at regular intervals.

9 out of 10

Parking Spots (Cars/Bicycles/Motorbikes):

There were plenty of parking spots for cars, bicycles and motorbikes, if you travelled by car you had a huge existing parking lot to park your car, the traffic controllers guided you to your spot and there were plenty of them. From there you would board the beforementioned shuttle-busses to the airbase. Parking for motorbikes and bicycles was even better, you could get very close to the base and only have a very short walk to the base itself. So parking in itself was properly organised. Now to my point of criticism, when you travelled by car you had to pay a parking ticket of 5 euros, not that expensive, but unfortunately, they didn't check at all on both days if you actually had one or not. This could give people the feeling that they paid for nothing. I understand that the whole show and everything around it costs money and this is a way to raise funds, but it would be nice to see if they actually checked the tickets. Getting of the parking area was a small pain, this is not due to the traffic controllers, it is the biggest airshow in the Netherlands every year and it attracts huge crowds (around 200.000 people every year). Once of the parking area you'd have a nice and fairly easy drive home.

8 out of 10

Facilities and stands:

Stands a plenty, stands for military style clothing, aviation related articles, good cause foundations of all sorts, stands of display teams, the stands were abundant, a good variety this year. Not only were there stands, but also some demonstrations in different buildings of the airforce, one of the demonstrations was a FARP (Forward Arming and Refueling Point) demo, great to watch! A FARP is a place where a helicopter lands and without turning of it's engines is refueled and re-armed. A great way of the airforce to show it's capabilities. Plenty of toilets on the field, but it could be a big walk depending on where you were on the field. Food and drink stands where there, but it was the beverage bar and fast food stand. Would like to have seen some more salad bar type stands, just a bit more variety. Again for the handicapped people who couldn't walk it was hard to get around the flying display since the field was alot of "not-that-flat" terrain. The static area was perfect to drive around on with a wheelchair. More special spots for handicapped people would be a nice addition.

8.5 out of 10

Static Display:

Mostly military jets, like the F-15 Eagle, L-39, F-16, Mi-24, Apache etc. Plenty of military aircraft for the enthusiast to see. Let's however not forget the civilian participants of the static display like the Robin-2160 from the VCR (Flightclub Rotterdam). The position of the planes wasn't to good for photographers. Fences surrounded the planes, so when you took a photo you would see either other people or a fence on the other side. For the people who just love to watch it was great, aircrew was mostly around the plane and willing to talk about the planes. For the kids there was the possibility to get very close to an F-16 and take a photo.

8 out of 10

Commentators:

Usually 2 people do the commentary for the airforce days, Jan Cocheret en Leo van der Goot. not this year, well, Jan Cocheret and Dominique, the first one we know, the last one we don't. Dominique is a pilot onboard the Cougar helicopter. A great addition, an active RNLAF pilot to the commentary. She added additional info to the displays that gave you a little more background on some displays, mostly helicopter displays. I would like to see more RNLAF personell as commentators on such an airshow, maybe it's an idea to let old display pilots do the commentary for the displays. Besides the serious part of the commentary it's nice to see some jokes thrown in there.

8 out of 10

Flying Display:

I've read quite some criticism on the flying display and yes I have a few critiques myself. The program was varried and I saw alot of participants that arent't around all that often at this airshow. Yes, alot of the familiar faces like the Fokker Four, the heritage flight weren't at the show. The organisers were on a tight budget, this due to defence budget cuts. I believe us airshow enthusiasts are actually pretty lucky we still had this airshow this year. The point of critique I had with the flying display was the air power demo. The name says it all, air POWER demo, yes plenty of jets, explosions, but it could have been that much more dynamic. I do believe we had a more realistic look at operations.

The rest of the show was great, the Team Viper aerobatic display team was one of the highlights, seeing four Hawker Hunters in formation is great, but seeing them do opposite passes makes it even better. One of the teams that I would love to see again in coming shows. This team was up to par with the Finnish F/A-18 solo demo, what a great display it was, with plenty of flares. Speaking of flares, this show might have been the "Flares" edition, The Belgian F-16 solo display team, the RNLAF F-16 solo display team, the RNLAF Apache solo display team, the Finnish F/A-18 display team, the Turkish Soloturk F-16 display team all used flares in their show. Let's hope that more display teams will do the same, where possible ofcourse. It remains a spectacular sight.

The Belgian Red Devils are a display team with four SF-260 Marchetti aerobatic planes, which showed a very nice demo with very tight formation flying. It's good to see this team back after many years. Another one of the 'slower' participants, the Royal Navy Black Cats display team, what a great display of showing the capabilities of the Lynx helicopter even showing maneuvers in formation, something which is very hard to do in a helicopter, again one of the participants that I would like to see again.

The last two participants I'll mention are the Italian Eurofighter solo display and the Polish Mig-29 solo display, both were excellent demos and it was a joy to watch these two-engine fighter jets. The Italian Eurofighter showed great maneuverability and the thrust vectoring was clearly visible in some of those maneuvers. The sturdy Polish Mig-29 smoked as it always does and also showed that it might be old, almost as old as the F-16, but is still a very capable jet-fighter.

All in all I liked the program with more jets and helicopters than usual, which I personally liked. Unfortunately next year there won't be airforce days, also due to budget cuts. The next RNLAF airshow is in 2013 at Volkel AFB.

See you there.

9 out of 10

Overall: