THROUGH THE LENS: NATO Tiger Meet 2024

Report and photos by Kees Hollemans

June 28, 2024

The Tiger Meet 2024 took place June 3, 2024 – June 13, 2024 in Schleswig AB, Germany. Our friend Kees Hollemans was there to follow the action. Here, Kees provides a summary of his experience at the event…

Most of the photos were taken in Schleswig-Jagel on the observer day on June 10th. The photo opportunities were not great. We were with 1,500 people on a small field along runway 25/07, right in front of the ATC tower. Quite far from runway 23/05, which was in use. I chose to stand as far east as possible. I suspected that the Rafales in particular would shoot into the air like a rocket during takeoff. The further west I stood, the higher the plane would be. At least that’s what I thought, fortunately it wasn’t too bad. Since the distance to the runway was very great, I had to photograph the plane at the start with a 600 mm lens. Fortunately, it was reasonably clear. The morning after landing, almost all the planes taxied onto runway 25/07. Because there were so many people and the space was so small, it was difficult to photograph the aircraft on the ground. Sometimes a plane was taxiing too close to take a good photo. In the afternoon, almost the same plane went out. Unfortunately, no plane 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 heavy rain. On Tuesday, June 11, I was outside the base during the landing. The weather was clearly bad: lots of rain. Fortunately, the Czechs and Turks were on the run on Tuesday. I took these photos with my 180-400 mm. Because of the bad weather, I did not wait for the afternoon mission. It was also a 7-hour drive from Jagel for me. The units that participated in NATO Tiger Meet 2024 are listed below.

The Dutch F35s did not participate in the exercise but remained throughout the weekend. The MH60s were temporarily based at Hohn Air Base.

Participating units in 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 Switzerland 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 313th Squadron RNLAF (MH-60S HSC-21 USN DO02)

Now let’s take a look at the NATO Tiger Meet 2024…THROUGH THE LENS…

This author is a guest contributor for Aviation Photography Digest or the article is reprinted from another source.