THROUGH THE LENS: NATO Tiger Meet 2024
Report and photos by Kees Hollemans
June 28, 2024
Tiger Meet 2024 took place –
Most of the photos were taken at Schleswig-Jagel during the spotters day on June 10. The opportunities for photography weren’t great. We were standing with 1500 people on a small piece of land along runway 25/07 right in front of the ATC tower. Quite far away from runway 23/05, which was in use. I chose to stand as far east as possible. I suspected that especially the Rafales would shoot into the air like a rocket at takeoff. The more west I would stand, the higher the aircraft would be. At least that was my thought, fortunately, it was not too bad. Because the distance to the runway was so great, I had to photograph the departing aircraft with a 600mm lens. Luckily, it was reasonably clear. In the morning after landing, almost all aircraft taxied over runway 25/07. Because it was so crowded and the space was so small, it was difficult to photograph the taxiing aircraft. Sometimes, an aircraft taxied too close for a good photo.In the afternoon, nearly the same aircraft went out. Unfortunately, no aircraft taxied in front of us after landing. As you can see from the photos, the weather that day was very changeable: from full sun to a heavy shower. On Tuesday, June 11, I stood outside the base during the landing. The weather was distinctly bad: lots of rain. Luckily, the Czechs and Turks were flying on Tuesday. I took these pictures with my 180-400mm. Because of the bad weather, I did not wait for the afternoon mission. It was also a 7-hour drive back home from Jagel for me. The units that participated in the NATO Tiger Meet 2024 are listed below.
The Dutch F35s did not participate in the exercise but stayed over for the weekend. The MH60s were temporarily based at Hohn Air Base.
Participating units for NATO Tigermeet 2024: Rafale B/C EC 03.030 FAFRafale M 11 F FNF-16C/D 335 MV / 116 PM Hellenic AFF-2000A 936ºGEA / 36ºSt Italian AFF-16C/D 6 ELT / 31 BLT Polish AFF/A-18C Fl.St. 11 Swiss AFF-16C/D 192 Filo / 9 AJÜ Turkish AFJAS-39C/D 211 tl / 21 zTL Czech AFEF2000 TaktLwG 74 GAFTornado IDS/ECR TaktLwG 51 GAFSuper Lynx Mk.88A MFG 5 GNSA.342M 3 RHC FAR (F-35A 313 Sqn RNLAF)(MH-60S HSC-21 USN DO02)
Now, let’s take a look at the NATO Tiger Meet 2024…THROUGH THE LENS…
