The air show at Leeuwarden AB was special because it would show for the first time the F-35A Lightning II in the Netherlands. The F-35As were brought to the Netherlands for a couple of resends. The first one was to see what the people around the air bases found about the noise of the F-35A in comparison with the F-16. The second one was looking how to work with the F-35 in a operational situation at the airbases. The last and certainly not the least important, was to show the Dutch people where our tax money would be spent the coming decades.

I was at Leeuwarden on Thursday (arrival day and rehearsal day) and Friday (first show day). Unfortunately there was accident on Thursday with the Patrouille Suisse during their practice for the show. Two F-5Es collided, were by J-3086 was badly damaged and crashed just outside the airbase at the village of Bitgum. The J-3088 managed to landed with severed stabilizer and the damaged flaps on the right side of the airplane (the point of contact of the two airplanes).