Although the origin of Tiger Meet is a bit fuzzy, it appears to have started with the 79th and No 74 squadron RAF getting together for some whiskey and cheer in 1960. In 1961 the meeting was continued, with the addition of the French EC 1/12, and so the NATO Tiger Association was born. In 1962 then Lt Mike Dugan volunteered as project officer. Lt Dugan, never one to let authority corrupt fighter pilot activities, decided it should be a true “NATO Tiger Day“. He therefore sent letters directly to all the tigers for which he found an address. A number of units immediately accepted but returned their reply “through channels “. This of course resulted in all the HQs (USAFE, 3rd AF, and the 20th Wing) descending on the 79th with “requests” as to what the hell we thought we were doing. Mike’s program won the Wing Commander’s support and they, in turn convinced Head Quarters that NATO Tigers was possible. About this same time a London paper headlined an article, “IRON CROSSES OVER SUFFOLK” or something close. I then got a call from an RAF friend at Fighter Command. It was a “friendly consultation” about “Yank” ignorance. It seems that at that time no German military aircraft were allowed near the UK. He had just spent the day un-ruffling the feathers of the Prime Minister’s press office. He’d indicated to the PR boys that both the RAF and other NATO forces were involved and a refusal of the German forces would be difficult. The result was a limited and somewhat miffed consent. USAFE also approved with file usual admonition that nothing bad better happen. After such a bumpy start, Mike’s planning and drive got everything on track and with the help of a world of people it became a success. A couple of other events colored that gathering. We had a motley assortment of tiger emblems, but the spirit was there. The French brought a large transport loaded with ammo boxes for the various competitions. When opened, most of the boxes contained champagne! The Biggin Hill 'Tiger Moth Club” almost invited themselves. This turned out to be a lucky move, since weather on the flyby day was about 400 ft. in heavy rain. Not to be discouraged -the Moths took off in flights of three and four to do flybys and low level acrobatics. A weird day.   Although the origin of Tiger Meet is a bit fuzzy, it appears to have started with the 79th and No 74 squadron RAF getting together for some whiskey and cheer in 1960. In 1961 the meeting was continued, with the addition of the French EC 1/12, and so the NATO Tiger Association was born. In 1962 then Lt Mike Dugan volunteered as project officer. Lt Dugan, never one to let authority corrupt fighter pilot activities, decided it should be a true “NATO Tiger Day“. He therefore sent letters directly to all the tigers for which he found an address. A number of units immediately accepted but returned their reply “through channels “. This of course resulted in all the HQs (USAFE, 3rd AF, and the 20th Wing) descending on the 79th with “requests” as to what the hell we thought we were doing. Mike’s program won the Wing Commander’s support and they, in turn convinced Head Quarters that NATO Tigers was possible. About this same time a London paper headlined an article, “IRON CROSSES OVER SUFFOLK” or something close. I then got a call from an RAF friend at Fighter Command. It was a “friendly consultation” about “Yank” ignorance. It seems that at that time no German military aircraft were allowed near the UK. He had just spent the day un-ruffling the feathers of the Prime Minister’s press office. He’d indicated to the PR boys that both the RAF and other NATO forces were involved and a refusal of the German forces would be difficult. The result was a limited and somewhat miffed consent. USAFE also approved with file usual admonition that nothing bad better happen. After such a bumpy start, Mike’s planning and drive got everything on track and with the help of a world of people it became a success. A couple of other events colored that gathering. We had a motley assortment of tiger emblems, but the spirit was there. The French brought a large transport loaded with ammo boxes for the various competitions. When opened, most of the boxes contained champagne! The Biggin Hill 'Tiger Moth Club” almost invited themselves. This turned out to be a lucky move, since weather on the flyby day was about 400 ft. in heavy rain. Not to be discouraged -the Moths took off in flights of three and four to do flybys and low level acrobatics. A weird day.

Ørland Main Air Station (IATA: OLA, ICAO: ENOL) (Norwegian: Ørland hovedflystasjon) is situated at the mouth of the Trondheimsfjorden in the municipality of Ørland in Trøndelag county in the center of Norway. Ørland is operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force and is an important air base not only for Norway, but also for NATO. The air station is the base of F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, F-16 fighter aircraft, Westland Sea King search and rescue helicopters and a location for E-3A Sentry AWACS. It is also the host of many NATO exercises. In addition, Danish Air Transport operates a scheduled route with an ATR 42 (Most commonly an ATR 42-320/500) 36-48 seater aircraft to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen operating 2 daily rotations, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon (Typical rush hours). Air Wing 138 is stationed at the main air station. Under it are most operations at the air station, including Squadron 338, the Luftvernartilleribataljon (GBAD unit), the Base-Set I (mobile QRF unit), but not the Squadron 330. The Norwegian F-16 IRF (Immediate Reaction Force) is stationed here together with support administration. The squadron can act independently without support from the host nation. The Squadron 338 has half the Royal Norwegian Air Force' 57 F-16 aircraft and has 22 pilots. Ørland is the only air station on the Scandinavian Peninsula that has ground handling equipment for the E-3A Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System). It is considered a forward operations location (FOL), but not a base for these aircraft. There is also a detachment of four Westland Sea King search and rescue helicopters from the 330 Squadron at Sola Air Station to assist any emergency at sea or in other unreachable places.

NATO Tiger Meet (NTM) is a two-week multi-national mid-size exercise that includes all types of air-to-air and air-to-ground and a wide variety of support missions, comprising CSAR and large COMAOs (Composite Air Operations). NTM2014 (with spotters days on Jun. 19 and 23) was held at Schleswig – Jagel, in northern Germany. Along with the first Eurofighter Typhoon in tiger color scheme, several other aircraft attended the drills with brand new, flamboyant tiger color schemes: French Rafales, Polish F-16 Block 52+ jets, Turkish F-16Cs, and Czech JAS-39 Gripen sported cool tiger liveries. NATO’s annual excuse to get busy with its paint pots and get creative occurred in late June when the majority of the organisation’s tiger squadrons gathered in northern Germany for the 2014 NATO Tiger Meet. This year’s event was hosted by the recently renamed Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader (TaktLwG) 51 at Schleswig-Jagel Air Base, 100 kilometres north of Hamburg. TaktLwG 51 had previously been known as Aufklärungsgeshwader (AKG) 51, until 1 October 2013 when all German Air Force units were renamed. Chris Wood and Karl Drage report from a chilly northern Germany.  TaktLwG 51 is the German Air Force’s only reconnaissance unit and has also taken over the SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defence) role following the disbandment of JBG (Jagdbombergeschwader) 32 in March 2013. Consequently it operates both the IDS (Interdiction Strike) and ECR (Electronic Combat and Reconnaissance) versions of the Tornado. The last time that Schleswig had been the venue for the Tiger Meet was in September 2004, and whilst this year’s event may not have been blessed with the 2004 weather, it was a considerably larger exercise, and took place over two weeks. It followed the same pattern as recent years with participants arriving on Monday of the first week, flying two daytime missions on working days until the Thursday of the second week, when flying stopped for the prize giving and various social events. Participants then headed home the following day. Most of the fast jet units brought five aircraft, including a two-seat version, and typically flew four in each mission. Virtually every squadron brought a specially-painted aircraft, a few of which had been seen before but most were new for this year. Eagerly anticipated and most impressive was the Eurofighter EF2000 from the Bavarian Tigers of TaktLwG 74 at Neuburg, which rather put to bed all the rumours that you couldn’t paint Typhoons! It also won the prize for the best paint scheme, beating off stiff competition from the hosts, and the French.  Additional aircraft from various tiger squadrons appeared at Schleswig during the course of the exercise, and on Friday afternoon three Portuguese F-16AMs from Esquadra 301 at Monte Real also arrived. They stayed for the weekend, departing on Monday morning. The weather proved uncooperative during the later part of the first week, with strong winds and storms resulting in some curtailment of flying operations. However, Friday morning saw 48 fast jets take to the skies; a sight not often seen in Europe these days. Two spotters’ days were organised during the event, one during each week, to enable photographers and enthusiasts to watch the activities close up. The first one was plagued by the weather which resulted in fewer aircraft than planned taking part in the missions. However, most of the non-flying, special-schemed aircraft, as well as most that did fly, were taxied past the spotters’ enclosure, providing an excellent opportunity to view and photograph the aircraft and the magnificent artwork.  

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