First operational F35A delivered to the Netherlands

Yesterday landed the first operational F35 of the Royal Netherlands Air Force at Leeuwarden air base.

Flown in from Italy, the F35 landing was live streamed by the department of defense on Youtube.

Fun fact : The ceremonial fire hose spray had a little mistake.. instead of water they foamed the plane on arrival.. well at least it was a clean arrival ; )



Recording of the live stream:



A nice flyby of of 4 birds and a real bird :

a reply to: EartOccupant

Fun fact, foam causes lots and lots of corrosion if not taken care of properly, and does Bad Things to engines when it goes down them. Heh. So that bird is Code 3 for a few days while they scrub the hell out of it, inspect the skin, and probably change the engine.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh oh.. well somehow nobody mentioned that little pricey fun fact.

I guess they did not want to distract from the "joy".

originally posted by: EartOccupant
Yesterday landed the first operational F35 of the Royal Netherlands Air Force at Leeuwarden air base.

Flown in from Italy, the F35 landing was live streamed by the department of defense on Youtube.

Fun fact : The ceremonial fire hose spray had a little mistake.. instead of water they foamed the plane on arrival.. well at least it was a clean arrival ; )

The first thought I had when I saw this picture was that the pigeons in the Netherlands are AWFUL! LOL

a reply to: BomSquad

Well.. they are bad.. our pigeons : )

But we have even worse birds for that. Heron's

We have a saying: "Taking a sh#t like a Heron."

a reply to: EartOccupant

In theory, it's just going to require a couple clean water washes, to make sure it's flushed from all the cracks and crevices, and a borescope of the engine to check seals. That's best case. Worst case, is it damaged some of the skin, and the engine needs changing.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That made me think...I hope they also delivered a few new engine's with that plane, as it is the first !

Although i guess that with an operational craft, that is standard procedure. But hey... we still only got one!

a reply to: EartOccupant

we still only got one!

Well, you had one. Now you've got a hangar queen for however long it takes the maintenance crews to do the work and be sure they've done it correctly. Wouldn't want to be the guy who selected the wrong function for the spraying hose ...

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

I think the board radio communication on that moment was fun to!
The Pilot even had to brake because he could not see where he was going... Wait... did we just invent a way to make a F35 blind ??? Whoohahaha.

Anyway, next time we order some US planes i guess we have to check and ask if they are car wash proof.

( For Zaphod: I know i know.. fire foam is not soap)

a reply to: EartOccupant

Any time you order aircraft, you get spare parts, including engines delivered, as well as weapons and training. They'll probably have most of their spare engines in the US with the other aircraft, but if they don't have one there, they can ship it in a day or two. It's all packaged, and ready to go, it's just a matter of getting it on a plane heading that way.

a reply to: EartOccupant

A "more serious" question for you, re: Royal Netherlands Air Force.

Is the F-35, in your opinion, the kind of aircraft needed by the Netherlands for particular missions? Or are buys like more to maintain credibility among other NATO countries?

Regrets if my questions seem rude, but I am curious how other NATO countries "feel" about purchases of very expensive weaponry, and their opinion of how well suited such equipment is to their particular requirements.

Cheers

a reply to: EartOccupant

We have a little bit of experience dealing with foam to wash aircraft.....

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ooh, that one with open cockpit looks bad.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

I'll let him speak for the Netherlands, but from comments I've seen from Poland, they can't wait to get their hands on them. They think they're the best thing they've seen in decades, and are looking forward to getting their pilots into them.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

That's Shaw. Everything from Shaw is bad. Heh.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

I'll let him speak for the Netherlands, but from comments I've seen from Poland, they can't wait to get their hands on them. They think they're the best thing they've seen in decades, and are looking forward to getting their pilots into them.

Zaphod58,

Check. The F35s are no doubt good aircraft. My question is more along the lines of fit for national requirements.

Kind of interesting since post World War II. Major weapons systems today, because of the incredible costs involved, are developed by only a few countries in the world. So, purchase of those systems by another country is an option ... but, in a sense, the buying country is purchasing something that was developed to meet someone else's challenges.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

No offense.

I'm not an expert by any means, but i will try to answer your question:

A little History: The decision to replace our F16 fleet with the F35 was not taken easy.
There were a lot of debates, political mostly. Even a suspicion of foul play resulting in the dead of Pim Fortuyn, on his way to become prime minister and he was against the plane. Nothing proven. But in short the decision to buy the F35 made a lot of waves at the time.

So what do we need?
Well.. we need to be capable of defending our airspace/country at any time. That is the basic need in my opinion.
All other "missions" ( NATO, EU, UN etc ) are political and can change in a second.


Personal: As a small country (not yet totally being hijacked by the EU) i think the plane we would need is a plane to defend our airspace and capable of ground/sea attacks. We also have Apache Helicopters. So i guess those two combined is not a bad choice for our little country.
Although i think the best weaponry for a country is home made weaponry. But our aircraft industry is almost dead.

Sure we feel some NATO pressure, but you can also buy some up to date fighters from other NATO country's. We chose this one.. i'm still not convinced that capabilities/cost was the only decisive factor. So I guess we had some US pressure. And, yes that was also in the debate, but mostly among interested people, not the guy on the street.

Not sure if this helped, but feel free to ask.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thnx.

And i have to say that is the common perception here as well ( besides the ones against everything ) .

Politics aside, I like the plane! I like the capabilities, the options.

But i'm very curious about some long term experience. It will be hard to "beat" the F16 track record in operational long term reliability and maintenance.

With the F-35, you get full inter-operability, data-sharing, etc with other so-equiped NATO forces. To say nothing of the "stealth" capability , etc. And you can now buy them cheaper than most alternatives, so the arguments that it is too much capability starts to fall flat because that revolves around pricetag.

a reply to: RadioRobert

So a personal question... a bit philosophical maybe but..

We buy these those toys for worst case scenario's..

Lets name one worst case scenario:

What would happen if one ore more NATO allies would go to war amongst eachother ?

- Can the US deactivate them with a flip op the switch?
- Do you want the same capabilities as you neighbor?
- Where to get your spare parts after a foam bath..