Frisian Flag 2022 Report

Italian Air Force Tornado IDS takes off from Leeuwarden Air Base, The Netherlands, to conduct a mission as part of the Frisian Flag 2022 exercise.

The annual exercise Frisian Flag will take place at Leeuwarden Air Base (ICAO:EHLW) in the Netherlands from Monday March 28, until Friday April 8, 2022. Also this year there are many foreign participants involved in the exercise. Several air defense missions and ground attack missions are flown from the Frisian airbase Leeuwarden during Frisian Flag.

The exercise will last almost two weeks and the participating pilots are trained to perform complex missions in international cooperation at a higher intensity. Scenarios which occur during future NATO Response Force (NRF) deployments are intensively trained. With the tensions in Eastern Europe and the war in the Ukraine in mind, this is a very important training for the participants.

The participants of the exercise will take off twice a day and perform several tasks in parallel during this realistic scenario. The air defense missions are flown in airspace which is defended against invading enemy planes to maintain a No-Fly Zone. The whole northern part of the country and areas at the North Sea are designated daily for the exercise.

The participants of this edition of Frisian Flag is again a various field of countries. For the Netherlands it is the first time in history that the F-35A Lightning II is participating. The 322 Squadron at Leeuwarden reached its Initial Operational Capability (IOC) status last year and is now fully capable to join training scenarios as practiced in Frisian Flag. The last F-16’s left Leeuwarden on July 5th 2021. This is a huge milestone for the RNLAF during the introduction trajectory of the F-35A. The American contributor this year is the participation of twelve F-16C Fighting falcon aircraft from the Italian base Aviano.

The most remarkable participant in this edition is the Canadian Air Force. It is the first time that this air force is joining the exercise. The Canadians are since the tensions are rising more and more active in Europe as a member of NATO. The Canadians already had multiple deployments in Romania in the past and are now in Europe for their next tour. Frisian Flag is for these pilots the perfect exercise to train in the European corporation.

Initially also the Polish Air Force would participate, but they had to cancel their contribution due to their high readiness in Poland due to the Ukrainian war. The Italians replaced the Polish Air Force by sending a few Tornado IDS and EF2000 Eurofighters to the exercise. A fixed contributor in the part years is France. This year again they sent Mirage 2000D fighters to the exercise. On top of that also the French Navy is joining the exercise by flying along with their Marine Rafales.

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Text: Alex van Noye, Joris van Boven
Images, Video: Alex van Noye