F-16 fighter jets to make farewell flight in Netherlands

The Netherlands will host the farewell flight of F-16 fighters Irina Martsiyash

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The Netherlands Air Force will hold a farewell ceremony for its last F-16 fighters. Their ceremonial farewell flight will take place on Friday, September 27.

The ceremony will be broadcast live on September 27 at 1:30 p.m. local time, as reported by the Ukrinform correspondent in The Hague.

Netherlands to hold F-16 farewell ceremony

During the ceremony, the last few F-16s will fly a farewell tour over the Netherlands, taking off from Volkel Air Base.

The Dutch Air Force has been flying F-16s for 45 years, and they have been used for decades in missions at home and abroad.

The decision to broadcast the farewell flights live is said to be due to the great interest in the event both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to accommodate everyone at the air base, so a choice has to be made. We are, among other things, limited by the number of locations where the event will take place. We understand that many (former) colleagues and aviation fans are disappointed by this. Therefore, in order to meet the numerous requests and to involve as many people as possible in the F-16 farewell flights, we are giving everyone the opportunity to follow what will happen in the afternoon live, says the Dutch Air Force.

The route that the F-16s will fly has been shown on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Defence.

Route of the farewell flight of the Dutch F-16s on September 27, 2024/Photo by the Dutch Ministry of Defense

Let us add that as of 2022, there were 29 F-16 fighters. Now the country is actively switching to the new American F-35 aircraft.