After winning the Lowland Tigermeet 2003 Falcon 4.0 squadron competition, we were invited by 323 Squadron to visit their base, Leeuwarden. December 19th was the big day, and at 8.45 hours , Dirk "Pacman" Verbist, David "Cash" De Wit, Bart "Goose" De Marie and Joeri "Mil" Cools were standing at the gate o a f Leeuwarden AB.

At first they were a little bit cautious because "there are 4 Belgians at the gate" :-) but after a few phone calls they knew why we were there and Henk Oldenkamp, PR man for the squadron and also crewchief, came to pick us up. He drove us to the squadron where we had a coffee and met some pilots. Henk showed us the building and gave jobdescriptions everywhere we went, the maintenance of the G-suits and all the pilots gear, the pilots locker rooms, the technicall room where all data on the F-16’s is stored ( malfuctions etc.).

By then Streamer ,323 sqn pilot, told us to follow him because he was getting ready to fly. First to the planning room where we could see that a 2-ship would fly today and they would be doing BFM. He then took us to the room where all the steerpoint and loadouts are set, we could see how the DTC was prepared for both aircraft and we received an excellent explanation on how the planning process worked. By then it was briefing time, we could attend the briefing for the flight and it was overwhelming, the amount of information that got processed was impressive and this was only a "short" briefing for a "simple" flight.

Henk then drove us to the shelters where the F-16’s were parked, and we got headphones so we were able to listen to the conversation between crew chief and pilot during the start up. It was very clear that these people knew their jobs. Everything went very smoothly in short term comms. After that we saw the F-16’s take off.

By now it was time for a lunch and we were planning to see the planes return from the control tower but the planes had allready returned when we finished lunch. So we went back to the squadron where we were told that we could go to the simulator immedialty if we wanted. First the operator gave us some information about the hardware used for it. To store all the hardware a second room is needed.

Now off to the cockpit, taking a look at all the panels and it all seemed familiar, we knew most of the panels from Falcon4.0 so we did not need much information about how everything worked. We all got a flight off about 20 minutes in the simulator and it was unbelievable to sit in it, now you didn’t need to press a buton on the screen but you could really switch all the buttons and feel the power needed to move the stick and to push the brakes.

It was a fantastic experience and something we will never forget. It was about 3pm now and we still had to give the beer we brought, so together with Henk and Steamer we went to the bar to have some beers. And at 5pm when almost everyone had left the base we went home very pleased. Thank you 323 Diana Squadron for giving us an unforgettable day, and thank you Lowland Tigermeet organisation for making this possible for us.