On Friday 18 and Saturday 19 June the annual Open Dagen of the Royal Netherlands Airforce took place at Volkel AB, Netherlands. Looking at the days with a spotters point of view, it was disappointing. 25 years F-16 with the fewest F-16 in years, no eastern Europe (new NATO members), expect the An-30 and no Migs.

Highlight were the Bulgarian An-30, which fly's Open Skies sorties. Two brand new Italian F-16s (first visit) and of course the Royal Navy Sea Harrier. The last one probably for the last time in the Netherlands.

Fortunately the weather was ok and on Saturday even mostly sunny with a beautiful cloudy sky. During the airpower demo a heavy rainstorm based the base, but that was it. In two days 290.000 people visited the air show, so in Airforce perspective it was a good show.

On Saturday an incident caused an abrupt ending of the Frecce Tricolori display. Most spectators didn't noticed it but after the part in which the solo aircraft did his "wobbly" flyby the whole team was ordered to stop immediately. (as heard on the scanner) What had happened? If fact on it´s flyby the solo aircraft was way to low, as you can see in the photo (10, MB339). The safety officials decided to stop the display, the public speaker earlier explained this is called a "red card".