Frisian Flag a Dutch Master Class

The previous edition of Frisian Flag, the annual large-scale air exercise organised by the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (Royal Netherlands Air Force, RNLAF), was a big success.  That is, until the ash cloud resulting from the Eyjafjallaj?kull volcano eruption in Iceland came in from the north on April 15, 2010, forcing the organising No.323 Tactical Training, Evaluation and Standardisation (TACTES) Squadron to suspend flying activities on the fourth day of the two-week exercise.  In the second week the participating RNLAF F-16s resumed flying – the other nations decided to redeploy their jets from Leeuwarden as soon as the opportunity was there, to prevent them from being stuck in the Netherlands for a longer period in case the situation deteriorated further.  Frisian Flag 2011, scheduled to run in July 2011, fell victim to the busy operational agenda of the RNLAF F-16 community, in particular the involvement in Operation Unified Protector over Libya and the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.

This year, Frisian Flag was back with the largest edition since the exercise was first held in 1992.

Low-Cost
Since its inception, Frisian Flag has more than proven itself as a low-cost alternative to the ‘Flag’ exercises held in North America.  “We want to train our pilots to plan, execute and extensively debrief large-scale COMAO [combined air operations] packages in realistic scenarios, and we ask other air forces to join us,” said Capt Jos a pilot with No.323 TACTES Squadron and this year’s Frisian Flag project officer.  “There is no participation fee involved, participants just pay for their own expenses, like accommodation and fuel.”  One of the exercise objectives is described as “to establish multinational relationships between NATO and non-NATO [Partnership for Peace – PfP] countries.”

With so many and diverse participants, there is a lot of experience gathering at Leeuwarden during the Frisian Flag exercises.  Lessons learned from recent operations, including those of NATO and PfP air forces over Libya and Afghanistan, but also from other exercises held recently, are all taken into account and integrated into the exercise scenarios.

Leeuwarden is ideally situated close to the vast training area over the North Sea, which covered roughly 180 x 145nm (330 x 270km) in Dutch, German and Danish Temporary Reserved Airspace (TRA) areas for this year’s exercise.  Overland training areas were added to provide additional training value, although these were minimally utilized to comply with noise abatement.