Do you remember this?:
The 4th AIRCENT Firing Competition, an international NATO shooting competition, took place at Leeuwarden Air Base between June 26 and July 7, 1961. The participating countries were: the Netherlands with a Hawker Hunter F.Mk.6, Belgium with a Hawker Hunter F.Mk.6, Denmark with a Hawker Hunter F.Mk.4, Germany with a Sabre 6, Canada with a Sabre 6, Italy with an F-86K, and Norway with an F-86K. Pictured here is the Hawker Hunter with First Lieutenant J. Pas in the cockpit.
I haven’t seen this, and it was some sort of training exchange that the photo I posted is from for most of the cold war Karup was the mainspot for Nato and a lot of training exercises especially with a few nations
Yeah, Belgium also went there for some time I believe.
Quite a few nations did it. The US hauled out some radar equipment and did mock battles for nations to test their skills at flying low and such. Theres a handful of images of them, more images of the 90’s training stuff but i dont think the Dutch were there for those.
One-way rotation with 306 Sqn from the Dutch Air Force at Volkel in the latter half of 1976, was written on the back of the image, had to find the other image lmao, looks like we came to the Dutch
A small snippet of a newspaper of the Dynamite 6-1 F-35 after winning the World cup against Uruguay 6-1. Without any permission two pilots painted the entire aircraft to celebrate the victory. The aircraft was so well reserved neither men we reprimanded.
This would actually lead to more incidents of the men painting things on their aircraft without permission such as the present camo i made a suggestion about.
After World War II, Denmark had very few usable aircraft left. Although abandoned German planes were available, the British had already ordered them destroyed to prevent Soviet forces from capturing them on Bornholm. As a result, Denmark received Spitfires through British military aid between 1947 and 1949(A bit rude if i might add, we could’ve used them but oh well). These included three unarmed PR Mk. XI reconnaissance aircraft equipped with cameras and thirty-eight H.F. Mk. IXE fighters armed with cannons and machine guns, all powered by Merlin 70 engines.
The Danish Spitfires were primarily used as trainer aircraft for new fighter pilots and served mainly with 2nd Air Wing, especially squadrons 722 and 725 at Værløse. The PR Mk. XI machines were painted grey-blue, while the Mk. IXE fighters included both high-back and a few low-back versions, some capable of carrying 90-gallon long-range tanks.
Accidents were common during this period because postwar flying in Denmark had fewer restrictions and the Spitfire itself was difficult to manage on the ground. The aircraft’s tendency to tip onto its nose led to several mishaps, and eight Mk. IXE fighters were ultimately lost, with four pilots killed. By 1951–52 most Spitfires had already been retired and scrapped, though the reconnaissance variants stayed in service slightly longer before being phased out. Many of the retured Spits are actually in a few of our Musuems and i believe 2 are privately owned and are still flying.
