Exercise "Ramstein Flag 2025"

This year the international exercise Frisian Flag was replaced with the exercise Ramstein Flag. Ramstein Flag is a joint NATO Air Command exercise with  over 100 aircraft participating from 10 European countries, operating from various airbases in Europe. The Dutch exercise Frisian Flag served as a blueprint for Ramstein Flag. With Ramstein being the central Command airbase.

Sadly the flying hours during this exercise are mostly planned late afternoon, early evening. Not ideal for us spotters. 

Leeuwarden hosted the most interesting participants. So we opted to try our luck during the arrival day. To be sure to not miss anything we made it a three day trip.

Thursday was a bummer because the weather was not on its best behaviour, as usual. The day after when the largest group of arrivals was planned the sky was blue with a brilliant sun. So many spotters around and beautiful shots could be made. Friday morning started good but quickly turned to overcloud and dark weather. 

A very nice trip. I even scored some new types i've never seen before. The Finnish Pilatus PC-12NG and the Dutch General Atomics Systems MQ-9 Reaper.

More pictures can be found here.