Afterburner.nl - A ferry to Maple Flag

Bringing F-16s to Cold Lake
In the months of May and June the annual exercise Maple Flag takes place at CFB Cold Lake, Canada. A large variety of nations participate in this flag exercise. Among these countries is the Netherlands, who wants to profit from the lessons learned in these events. Mostly, they participate with some 5 to 10 F-16s. Getting the aircraft and their support at Cold Lake takes some logistic planning and a KDC-10… Afterburner joint this operation in May 2002.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16s didn’t have to come all the way from Holland since they were already located at Goose Bay. Until 2003 they practiced low level operations from this base in Labrador, Canada. So personnel, equipment and the F-16s had to be brought from Goose Bay to Cold Lake. This means that the KDC-10 from Eindhoven Air Base could fly from its home base to Goose Bay rather empty. However, the Royal Danish Air Force also participated in Maple Flag. They requested the Dutch for a ferry flight over the Atlantic with 5 of their F-16s, which of course was no problem at all.

Departure day was Wednesday May 8^th 2002. After lifting off the KDC-10 set course towards Scotland. Just northwest of Scotland there was the rendez vous point with the 5 Danish F-16s. After refueling them for the first time, one of the Danish had a malfunction and decided to divert to Kevlavik, Iceland. Another one joint him so there were only three birds left to cross the Atlantic. After some 5 hours the snow white Canadian coastline became visible. Goose Bay is located near the east coast so after reaching the coastal area it only takes minutes to set foot on Canadian ground.
Goose Bay was packed with aircraft. Ten German Phantoms also enroute Maple Flag, escorted by two USAF KC-135Rs were sitting on the tarmac. Apart from the 10 Dutch F-16s there were also 8 RAF Tornado’s, three German C-160s and of course the Danish Falcons which joint the KDC-10. The Canadians had two CH-146 Griffins on alert.

After a good night rest we departed rather early in the morning of the 9^th for Cold Lake. This time, we escorted five RNLAF F-16s. Enjoying the excellent view over the frozen Canadian landscape we refueled the Falcons multiple times before reaching Cold Lake. It seemed that we arrived as one of the first Maple Flag participants; most of the ramps were still empty or packed with the based CF-188s. It took some three hours to offload the KDC-10. This time was gratefully used for taking some pictures of the based aircraft. Three special colored Hornets were out there and a visit to the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment (AETE) was also possible. Just in time for a picture an AETE Tutor returned from a mission. It was time for the KDC-10 to start with the third leg of the mission: departing for Ottawa. While taxiing to the main runway a Hornet rehearsing its solo display. After its display it landed on the parallel runway so we could depart without further delay.

We had a special delivery for the city of Ottawa: a statue in memory of hospitality the Dutch Royal Family received during WWII. Moving eastbound this time we flew into the night. The weather at Ottawa was really bad; low clouds, rainy and very gusty winds. It had been a very tiring day for the aircrew but they needed to be at maximum concentration to get the plane safely on the ground. The runway seemed to dance just in front of us and the co-pilot was preparing for a missed-approach procedure. But the captain managed to get the plane on the concrete where it was supposed to be. He admitted that it was a long time ago that he experienced such a heavy approach.

We had a 22 hours rest in Ottawa before returning to Goose Bay. It was Saturday 11 May, very very early in the morning when we lifted off Ottawa’s runway heading for Labrador again. We had to pick up the remaining personnel of the F-16 detachment, their equipment and the remaining 5 F-16s for a ferry back to the Netherlands. After a turn-around time of two hours at Goose Bay we set course to Europe on the fifth and last leg of the mission. While flying over Greenland the F-16s joined up in a formation next to the KDC-10 wing. Since the air was clear it was an extremely nice sight! After some five hours of flying we landed at home base Eindhoven. It was a great experience and we really admire the crew for their professional approach of doing their job. Certainly because we crossed so many time zones, we were really broken! And we didn’t have to do the work!