2022 Leeuwarden Frisian Flag
Frisian Flag 2022 was attended by several cool aircraft and units. Personally the Canadian CF18A/B’s were one of my favorites. Some of which I saw flying in the 90’s – most of them at Volkel airbase or over my house in Grave. The (then) Baden-Sollingen based CF18’s were regular visitors of airshows, exercises and rotations. These were the first non-F16 aircraft I saw in 1988 and they started my interest in more foreign aircraft types.
The CF18’s flew for 425sq/433sq of the 3rd Wing based at CFB Bagotville located in Eastern Canada. Besides the Hornets some other really nice arcraft flew missions. Frisian Flag exercises are about cooperation between nations and aircraft types in a ‘Flag’ type exercise consisting of Red air and Blue air. The following types were flown during the 2022 edition:
| Product | Prijs | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 9x | F16AM/BM | 312sq | KLu |
| 8x | F35A | 322sq | KLu |
| 9x | F16C/D | 510FS / 31FW Spangdahlem | USAFE |
| 3x | Rafale M | 11F / 12F | Aeronavale (France) |
| 5x | Mirage 2000D | EC1/3, EC2/3, EC3/3 | Armee de l'Air |
| 4x | Eurofighter F2000A | 132 Gruppo / 51 Stormo | Aeronautica Militare (Italia) |
| 2x | Tornado | GEA / 6 Stormo | Aeronautica Militare (Italia) |
| 6x | CF18A/B | 425sq / 433sq | Canadian Armed Forces |
Besides the official participants a civilian Falcon 20 of Draken flew daily missions as ECM platform. Dutch Apaches and Cougars flew also missions. In between some switches were made of participating aircraft and especially before and after the exercise many transport aircraft were flying support missions. During the exercise VIP aircraft and visitors were also attending.
I was present at the 29th of March during which I saw VIP aircraft (Italian P180, USAF C21A and Finish PC12) and visitors arriving for lunch-/night stop. The visiting aircraft consisted of two fairly new USAF Lakenheath 48th FW F35A’s.
During Frisian Flag 2022 German Luftwaffe and British RAF Eurofighter Typhoons flew from their homebases towards the North Sea training area’s to participate in the exercise. SAM systems from Russian origin were placed in the Marnewaard exercise area to add realistic ground threats.
