[prashant_dv]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks. Although I was born in Amsterdam I actually grew up in Amstelveen and only left when I was 23 and moved to the UK to live with my fiancee, soon to be wife in 1983.

The layout of this museum is excellent. Although there is a route, you can just wander around to your hearts content. I'm sure you will enjoy!

Jeroen

Hi Jeroen,

Thank you. I will make a visit as soon as the weather turns a bit more pleasant, been dull for last few days.

Cheers.

[TractionAvant]

Thank you for this wonderful thread Jeroen, I like the way you write! My father (an ex-Air Force pilot) has about 9 hours on the Hawker Hunter :-)

A question about the big II WW Bomber, is it perhaps a Liberator or a Mitchell?

Kind regards

Aditya

[Jeroen]

It is a Mitchell, thanks
Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I just came across two short youtube about the demo flight of the Dutch Airforce Fokker F27 routine. See above, where I stated these guys flew right on the deck?

Check out the video's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wajOrm8UpmY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wajOrm8UpmY

Enjoy

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

The Dutch army museum just released a cool video. It has been almost five years since I visited and took the images in this thread. So some of the airplanes and other items on display have been moved about..

But it will still present a very impressive overview of this museum and its collection and how well it is curated.

Enjoy!

Jeroen

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WgHHok...C40nyi98hoAIp0

[Jeroen]

It has been a little over eight years, since I posted this thread. The other day I revisited this great museum, for several reasons. My son Thomas wanted to see it, so we had a great father Son day. They also had a special exhibition on the F16 we wanted to see. Lastly, during the last couple of year they have been restoring an F100 Super Sabre. I always liked the F100 so I became a (financial) supporter of the project. During the restoration there were special photo opportunities for the sponsor so see and photograph the progress. Would have been very interesting, but for various reason I never made it.

So I wanted to see what it looked like for real. Here you see what it looked like some 8 years ago. Quite in a sorry state it was.



And this is how I got my first glimpse of it, fully restored!



The Americans had their 32nd Tactical Squadron based at Soesterberg for several decades. At some point in time they also flew F100s. The last American 32nd sq plane stationed here was the F15 Eagle.

The F100 was the first of the so called century fighters. After the F100, came planes such as the F101, 103, 104, 117 (although some would argue the F117 was not a real fighter.

Apart from this little fact, and the fact it looks really slick it was also the first jet fighter to be able to break the sound barrier in horizontal flight.

The type on display is a F100D. That is not the type flown by the 32nd actually, but this is the best they could do.



You will agree that the restoration works looks immaculate!





Look at the paint work and the lettering, really well done!





Next was the special exhibition on the F16 Fighting Falcon. Lots to see and I will be covering only some aspects.

The exhibition covers a lot of the development work on the F16. I also learned about 40 second Boyd. An American jet fighter pilot and instructor. He could defeat any and all pilots in under 40 seconds!. He was a distinguished pilot and went on together with Tomas Christie (a mathematician) to develop the so called energy manoeuvrability theory. It was their work that ultimately led to the F16. A highly manoeuvrable plane. Fully fly by wire digitally controlled by computers as the F16 itself is an inherently unstable (by purpose) design.

Here a model of the YF16 in the Lockheed colours



I remember having seen the F16 fly in these colours. Either at the Paris Airshow or maybe somewhere in Germany? I those days, mid 70s I was a member of an aviation enthusiast club and we travelled all over Europe to visit airshow, aircraft manufacturers and so on.

A couple of details of the F16

Its machine gun



Ejection seat, side stick and cockpit instruments. Note the angle at which the seat is positioned. This was to allow for the very high G forces the pilot could pull in the F16.





The Netherlands bought a total of 213 F16s. Every single one of them was assembled locally by Fokker at Schiphol airport. I have visited it several times in those days. The last Dutch F16 was produced on 28th of February 1992. That is more than 30 years ago already.

Due to various reasons, including peace time losses, the Netherlands never had more than 187 F16 Operational at any given time. 11 of these F16s are stationed in the USA where they are used for training Dutch Airforce pilots.

Anorak fact: The Netherlands F16 fleet is the second largest in the world, right behind the USA itself.

This special F16 exhibition is very much an interactive experience with lots to see and do. Images simply don’t do the experience justice.

They have this full blown F16 sitting in this circular theatre with a 180 degree projection of the original F16 promo movies and some shots from the cockpit.









All in all a very interesting exhibition and it was great wondering around the rest of the museum as well. Several air planes had been removed and are undergoing restoration as well.

Just for good measure and because the F16 is a gorgeous plane a few more shots of the F16 that is always on display in the main hall.





This is one of the earliest F16 models, a F16A



Finally another shot of the Dutch Airforce Alouette hanging in the main hall of the museum. Just because I have also just posted a thread about visiting the Alouette museum in the Netherlands.



Alouette museum (The Alouette - a great little helicopter!)

If you ever find yourself in the Netherlands and if you are interested in (military) aviation I strongly recommend this museum. Lots to see and do for kids too.

For some reason I seem to be posting a lot about helicopters and planes lately. Just one of my interest and I just happened to visit four fabulous museums (two in the UK and two in the Netherlands) in the last few months.

But next is my visit to this years greatest Classic Car Show in Europe, Techno Classica in Essen, Germany.

Jeroen