A bunch of photos I took on the Dutch "Open Dagen" this weekend.
Taken with a Nikon D300 + 80-200mm f/2.8 (not quite enough zoom for airshows though).

power in numbers?

Nice shots!

Hehe, yea there are a lot of shots. I preferred to give an impression of the whole weekend.

Holy smokes... nearly killed my phone trying to view all those pics in my mobile browser.

Frazer, great photos man! When they put on big shows over there, they really do it... and do it well!!! I absolutely love the F-16 pics with the wingtip smoke, the RNLAF demo team of course... but also that blue and gray F-16 looks amazing! Who flies that bird?

The Belgium F-16 Solo Display Team is flown by Michel 'Mitch' Beulen.

The RNLAF F16 Demo was taken over from Ralph "Sheik" Aarts (demo pilot for 3 years) and is now flown by Tobias "Hitec" Schutte.

The RNLAF Apache Demo Team is flown by Raymond ‘Casper’ Laporte and Roland ‘Wally’ Blankenspoor. This is my favorite demo team. I love to see the Apache doing loops and rolls!

The only thing they need is a fully painted aircraft, because what they have now looks more like a bunch of stickers...

Frazer wrote:The Belgium F-16 Solo Display Team is flown by Michel 'Mitch' Beulen.

That is one of the most beautiful F-16's I've ever seen! Extremely cool paintscheme. I've seen the Belgian Solo Display several times actually, but whenever they travel to the states they always use "borrowed airframes", so we never get to see the colored paintschemes they normally use in Europe. I had no idea it looked so cool!!!

The Belgian display was always one of the highlights at Aviation Nation because the pilot would push the plane to its limit rather than perform (yet another) tactical demo.

Same with the RNLAF demo... they put on a great display, but also flew with gray colored F-16's and never used flares either while they were in the states.

I'd love to see that Apache demo too... !!!

I don't understand why they don't fly the paint to the USA. The "skin" really is part of the show......

Frazer wrote:I don't understand why they don't fly the paint to the USA. The "skin" really is part of the show......

Wonder if it's due to the cost of the support equipment/personnel/procedures. There's a lot of tanking on an oceanic flight - not that they burn that many full tanks, but to always make sure they've got enough to reach a divert...

Well, all other aerobatic teams fly their planes to the USA. That is quite an operation indeed but if a whole team can do it, why not just one?

I really doubt it is due to costs.

Awesome photos! Love the European Vipers!

Hi,

Frazer, great pics!
(It was a privilege to see them first hand, we had a great weekend with all the guys).

I did hear the commentator of the show talking about the airshow boss being busy with getting the Thunderbirds over for one off the next "Open Dagen" airshows, that would be awesome!

Maybe the Virtual Thunderbirds team can come over to Holland then... ?

Lawndart wrote:That is one of the most beautiful F-16's I've ever seen! Extremely cool paintscheme.

I think you'll be able to watch it at VFAT 2010, the skin is almost ready for its virtual premiere!

Greetz, Wine