Very first time I attended a Frisian Flag exercise on Leeuwarden airbase was in 2001. This edition was the first participation of Finnish FA18C Hornets - during that year quite something special. Since those days these participated in many more NATO exercises. Other cool participants were German F4F Phantoms of JG71 'Richthofen' (nowadays flying EF2000's from Wittmundhafen) and Norwegian F16's.

This particular day the weather was terrible: the morning missions were all cancelled due to heavy fog, the afternoon missions just barely were a go - low clouds made the aircraft return after their mission coming straight in for landing (no breaks or overshoots). The light was also terrible - reason why I did not make many photographs.