On September 27, 2024 the last F-16s of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) will make their final flight, after more than 45 years of operations. In its heyday, nine RNLAF squadrons were equipped with this multi-role fighter jet, as the RNLAF purchased 213 F-16 Fighting Falcons in total. No 312 Squadron at Volkel Air Base is currently the last of these nine units to fly the type.
Exercise, exercise, exercise
Last October the final year of F-16 operations for 312 Squadron began with two consecutive exercises in both the Netherlands and Italy. Lt. Col. Patrick “Naish” Vreeburg, commander of 312 Squadron started the interview by stressing the continuous value for training and large employment exercises. He stated: “When I became commander of this squadron in 2020, I was told that we would perform the two most important tasks in our air force; the Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) and Dual Capable aircraft (DCA) nuclear task up to the end. However, the squadron would not conduct any more deployments. It took me several weeks to convince my superiors of the value of exercises and large employments, which we have done since. For example our participation in the Arctic Challenge Exercise (ACE) in Sweden last May and exercise Air Defender in June.”
In October the unit participated in exercise “Frisian Flag” at Leeuwarden Air Base, albeit the F-16s flew from their home base, directly followed by exercise “Steadfast Noon” in Northern Italy. Lt. Col. Vreeburg continued: “I am personally very pleased we were able to join both exercises for the last time as it offered our pilots and support personnel, of which the majority will continue on the F-35A Lightning II, a great opportunity to experience the exposure of the NATO alliance and necessary training and at the same time they were part of a historical event for the squadron!”
The two weeks long ”Frisian Flag” multi-national exercise is annually held at Leeuwarden Air Base and organized by the RNLAF’s 323 Air Combat Development Center (ACDC) . It prepares participating aircrews for complex hostile environments, allowing them to train together in offensive and defensive missions completing realistic scenarios over the North Sea. The two weeks exercise “Steadfast Noon” is a routine training exercise that has been conducted annually for over a decade, ensuring credibility, effectiveness and security of the nuclear deterrent of NATO. This years’ exercise was conducted in Northern Italy involving fighter aircraft capable of carrying nuclear warheads, even though no live bombs were used. Although the exercise has been organized for more than 10 years, NATO has become more transparent in the recent years about its nuclear operations, especially in regard to the current situation in Eastern Europe.
Lt. Col. Vreeburg continued: “normally during the “Frisian Flag” exercise we operate from Leeuwarden Air Base for maximum experience and knowledge sharing between the participating crews. However, this year we operated from Volkel Air Base and participated until Tuesday in the second week, as we deployed to Italy on the Friday. We already organized a small exercise in Northern Italy the week before to practice out of area operations and had left most of our deployed packages there. Shipping them back to Leeuwarden was logistically too difficult”.
No 312 Squadron had a liaison officer embedded in the “Frisian Flag” exercise at Leeuwarden Air Base, who joined the planning cycles and provided the necessary information to the squadron. The crews joined the mass briefs and debriefs from Volkel Air Base by means of a Video Teleconferencing (VTC) system, which functioned quite well. It proved that the concept is workable and even more realistic as alliance aircraft will operate from different locations during crises and wartime situations. In total six aircraft participated and flew 2/3rd of their missions as blue air and 1/3rd of the missions as red air.
As No 312 Squadron had less crews and maintainers left due to their conversion and the DCA exercise was “manpower heavy”, Lt. Col. Vreeburg decided to bring the whole unit to Northern Italy for exercise “Steadfast Noon”. 10 aircraft and around 160 squadron members deployed for two weeks to achieve two objectives. The first one to assess the DCA performance of the unit participating as a sending unit, where two plus one spare aircraft were assigned to the exercise. The other squadron aircraft participated as support flying both blue and red air missions. The strike missions lasted for over 4 hours and were flown to Southern Italy, however, the missions were not flown on a daily basis.
The second objective was to practice with alliance partners. During the non-flying days of exercise Steadfast Noon the squadron flew six turn six or six turn four missions with F-16s of the 31st FW, USAFE to practice Defensive Counter Air, Surface Attack or Basic Fighter Maneuvers.
Lt. Col. Vreeburg elaborated: “Basically we operated two different detachments at our host base, one for the “Steadfast Noon” exercise and one for the training with our US counterparts. Only the pilots switched between detachments to obtain maximum synergy and training experience.
The similarities between “Frisian Flag” and “Steadfast Noon” were there. Both exercises are large force employments in the highest violence spectrum and the missions are basically identical up to the point when we get close to the targets. Off course the choice of weapon is different, the procedures are therefore different and we have to make sure to turn around in time during DCA missions!”
Whether or not both exercises had been the last one for the F-16 community is still unclear, although nothing had been planned at the time of writing. The two-yearly Weapons Instructor Course (WIC) at Leeuwarden Air Base will be organized again in 2024. In November the decision had been made that no F-16 pilot would join the WIC 2024 edition as a participant, although it might offer valuable competencies, which could also be used after conversion to the F-35A. Currently the unit still has four weapons school qualified pilots, including an American exchange pilot.
Recently the squadron had been invited to deploy to Ørland, Norway in June for 1-2 weeks to deliver red and blue air capacity during the air-to-air phase of the WIC course. The final decision has yet to be made. Lt. Col. Vreeburg explained: “As the conversion of some maintainers to the F-35A will take longer, I strongly advocate to continue as long as possible and as useful as possible. The participation in Norway might keep the spirit and focus of our unit high and another opportunity to learn. Not only the planning and logistics, but also the flying in different airspace, weather conditions and different cultures. However the month of June will be our last possible time frame, any time later and we are not capable anymore to deploy because of the holidays and our staff converting to the new jet.”
Re-tasking QRA and DCA
The Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) responsibility for the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (BENELUX) region is shared between the Belgian Air Force and the RNLAF, with two pilots and crew chiefs standing ready to launch at a moment’s notice on a 24/7 basis, 365 days a year. To fulfil this mission, the QRA responsibility rotates every four months between the Belgian and Dutch units. From January 2024 the RNLAF will fulfill the QRA mission with the F-35A operated by the No 313 Squadron and No 322 TACTES Squadron, both taking turns and flying from their own bases.
As the F-35A community will participate in the exercise “Red Flag” at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, No 312 Squadron will one more last time fulfill the QRA mission during the month of March 2024. The unit had 14 pilots available in November 2023, with two pilots starting their transition in November and three in January. Including the commander, only nine pilots will remain active for the QRA duty, which can only be manned 24/7 with the help of attached pilots of the Air Combat Command staff. For example the commander of the RNLAF (and former No 312 Squadron commander), Lt. Gen. André “Jabba” Steur is still current on the F-16.
On November 9, 2023, No 313 Squadron received a ‘ready for operations’ by the American inspection team after an Initial Nuclear Surety Inspection (INSI). Under the motto “safe, secure and reliable” the inspection team used their checklists to rate the squadron whether or not it has a valid training program, if it is correctly applied and if the necessary procedures are correctly followed. In May 2024 the squadron will again be inspected for the Joint NSI, making the unit hopefully fully qualified for the DCA task. It will be most likely the moment that No 312 Squadron will hand over its nuclear task to its sister squadron. As the Netherlands has obligations to fulfill its DCA role correctly, No 312 Squadron has created a backup plan just in case of contingencies. All pilots undergoing their F-35 transition in the USA will leave the Netherlands fully current on the F-16 and its DCA task. If necessary pilots could return to fly the F-16 within the brackets of their currency and remain capable to fulfill the DCA mission.
The final year will also be used to finish the training programs for the pilots in the unit. The last three Dutch F-16 pilots graduated in July 2022 and will finish their Mission Qualification Training (MQT) in spring 2024. Furthermore two pilots will finish their flight lead training at the same time. Because of the necessary effort in their own training program, No 312 Squadron has less operated in conjunction with the F-35s in 2023. However, 2024 will be used to further work on the fighter integration between the 4th and 5th generation aircraft, as this remains of importance for NATO and Europe in the next decades to come.
One thing is for sure, in order to support F-16 operations until the end, the number of available aircraft is high. Both maintenance and aircraft readiness have been combined into one team, resulting in a continuous process of available jets and high numbers of flight hours.
Transition
No 312 Squadron is planned to become the third unit of the RNLAF to fly with the F-35A. After years of budget cuts and reduction of material the Dutch government decided to increase the defense budgets making it possible to increase the number of F-35A aircraft from originally 37 to 52 and operate a third squadron. After the final flight with the F-16, the unit will officially start its transition to the F-35A, although during the phase out crews have already started their conversion.
After No 313 Squadron and No 322 TACTES Squadron gave up their jets, 312 Squadron had over 30 pilots and jets active in 2022. The numbers have decreased over the last year to 24 jets and 14 pilots in November 2023. No 312 Squadron is planned to finish with four to five active pilots and 12 jets in September 2024. The coming months 10 pilots will start their conversion at Luke AFB, Arizona. Once they return to the Netherlands, all pilots and maintainers will join No 313 Squadron. Lt. Col. Vreeburg explained: “The first F-35s for our sister unit No 313 Squadron arrived in June 2022 and the squadron has since been building up its strength. Their first pilots and support personnel trained on the type as part of an extra flight attached to No 322 TACTES Squadron at Leeuwarden Air Base, No 312 Squadron might follow the same path. No 313 Squadron will first build up its number of pilots until somewhere mid 2024 the squadron is full. After that the next pilots will be assigned to No 312 Squadron, although they will arrive not earlier than the end of 2024 . Once No 313 Squadron is full eventually a flight will be carved out to start up the flight activities for No 312 Squadron. The careful planning for Full Operational Capability will be 2027”.
Future ahead
Last August it was announced that the Netherlands together with Denmark will supply Ukraine with its surplus F-16s. The exact amount of aircraft is not known, but the RNLAF still has 42 airframes in its inventory including the last 24 operational ones. At Charleroi, Belgium, 16 airframes (nine F-16BMs and nine F-16AMs) formerly operated by the RNLAF from Tucson IAP, Arizona, are kept in storage and receive maintenance to be capable of operating again for the training of Ukranian pilots. The first five aircraft were flown on November 7, to the European F-16 Training Center at Baza 86 Aeriana, Fetesti in Romania, near the border with Bulgaria. The Netherlands will supply the training center with 12-18 aircraft, which remain Dutch owned. No 312 Squadron has no other role in regard to the training center in Romania than providing the ferry pilots. Over the coming months the squadron strength will be brought back with 12 jets, which most likely will be handed over to the Ukraine. With the stand down of the 312 Squadron at the end of September the remaining operational aircraft will also possibly be transferred.
As Lt. Col. Vreeburg was still very busy with daily squadron activities during the time of the interview, the realization of being the final RNLAF F-16 commander after 45 years of operations had not sank in yet. However, reflecting on the past three years, brought a smile on his face. He concluded: “time after time we have showed, together with our stakeholders, what we are still capable of with our versatile weapons platform. We have a wonderful group of pilots and maintainers with a lot of experience and a high esprit de corps, resulting in high numbers of available aircraft and many flight hours for the crews. I am very pleased that we resumed investing in the quality of our staff, as they make the difference now and bring their experience in the future to the new platform. The “Sons of Bonzo” were the last to fly the F-104G Starfighter and will again close another chapter in the history of the RNLAF in style!”
‘Sons of Bonzo’
No 312 squadron was established on December 1st 1951 at Volkel Air Base. Over the years the squadron has operated different types of aircraft such as the F-84E/-G ‘Thunderjet’, F-84F ‘Thunderstreak’ and F-104G ‘Starfighter’. No 312 Squadron became operational on the F-16 on October 1st, 1985, after 18 years of operation with the iconic F-104G ‘Starfighter’. The squadron was the last operational unit within the RNLAF to operate this type until 1984, when it started conversion to the brand new F-16. Between 1993 and 2018 the F-16s of the unit have performed multiple deployments to Italy, Kyrgyzistan, Afghanistan, the Baltic States and Jordan in support of the different international operations.
On December 1st 2021 the squadron celebrated its 70 years anniversary, but due to the Covid-pandemic a proper celebration could not be organized. However, one F-16 received special markings to celebrate this special occasion.
The nickname of the squadron is “Sons of Bonzo”, derived from the name of the dog of the commander of No 327 squadron, the first RNLAF squadron at Volkel Air Base. The name was chosen by the first commander of No 312 squadron.
The squadron logo is two crossed golden swords interlaced with a red lightning strike. The markings consist of a red and white checkered tailband with the squadron’s logo in the middle of the tail.
The motto of the squadron is Audax Cum Consilio: ‘Bold and Discreet’, clearly outlining the mission set, i.e. protection of the Dutch airspace by means of the Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) mission and the execution of nuclear strike taskings on behalf of the NATO alliance.
This article was published in the April issue of Combat Aircraft Magazine. A very special thanks to SCOM Volkel Air Base, 312 Squadron Commander 'Naish' and major 'Deuce'
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