Spottersday 2024, Kleine Brogel Air Base
Ahead of the International Sanicole Airshow weekend, the nearby Kleine Brogel Air Base once again hosted a ‘Spottersday.’ This year it was held alongside the annual open day for local residents to visit the base and see all the different work that goes on there. As always it was a chance to see many of the airshow participants at close quarters but also to see some regular operation activities at the air base.
Paul Johnson/Flightline UK reports. All photography by the author.
While there is certainly a high degree of cooperation between the organisers of Spottersday and International Sanicole Airshow, they are separate events. The last ‘Spottersday’ which was related to the Airshow took place in 2022. That event was widely panned. Firstly, the weather really did not help with low cloud and visibility all day, but also there was a complete lack of activity for much of the day and a lack of aircraft on the static lines. (So little infact I could not gain enough material for a review.) It was also that year that the Belgian Air Force hiked the price for the Spottersday up to €60. There was a fair bit of negative feedback as a result and to their credit, the Belgian Air Force did offer some discount for the next Spottersday which was part of Belgian Air Force Days 2023.
For 2024, the admission price for Spottersday was still higher than that in 2021 (which was a two-day event) though at the time I bought a ticket the price was discounted down to €45. Somewhat balancing that high price was the catering charge card given out on entry with €9 already on it.
On arrival I did rather wonder if we were in for a repeat of the unsuccessful event in 2022. The static line on the parallel taxiway was very sparse with just three aircraft spread along its full length. On a positive note, the tie-in with the ‘Friends and Families’ Day did mean more effort was put into ground attractions with the maintenance hangar full of Belgian Air Force stands and plenty of catering outlets.
Making a return for 2024 was a dedicated spotters enclosure between the taxiway and the runway for those who wanted a much closer view of the runway action. However, the entire crowdline offered excellent views of the flying action and personally, it was far more pleasant to wander up and down the main crowd line and have a very relaxed day in spacious surroundings.
Walking through the operations area, some of the lighter aircraft bound for Sanicole were parked up alongside the seven F-5E Tiger IIs of the Patrouille Suisse. Notably so was one of the Extra 330LX aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Falcons. Always a great favourite at Belgian shows, one of the team made a forced landing on the transit to KB from Italy in the south of the country. The crew sustained significant injuries and were being treated in hospital at the time of writing. The Jordanians withdrew from flying at Sanicole and were busily dismantling their aircraft at KB ahead of their return home the following week.
Fine weather did mean there were plenty of flights to and from Sanicole for rehearsals plus some to meet up with the air-to-air photographers operating to the south. Adding further interest in the morning were some normal training sorties by Lockheed Martin F-16AM and F-16BM Fighting Falcons from the Kleine Brogel based squadrons. Not only were there some spectacular stream take-offs, but on return some of the aircraft performed several circuits.
There were a string of arrivals too including F-16AM/BMs from the Danish and Portuguese Air Forces, the French Air Force Rafales, Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s and the Irish Air Corps with four Pilatus PC-9Ms and their new Airbus C295MPW.
The Belgian Air Force demo teams also flew during the day with the NH90NFH Caiman and Red Devils performing displays. There were also some hints of last year’s F-16AM Fighting Falcon solo display with some nice passes from Steven “Vrieske” De Vries ahead of his rehearsal with Kris Van der Bergh’s Spitfire XVI at Sanicole. On return, they did perform one pass in formation before landing.
Closing the major flying activities were the four 31 Squadron F-16s from the Thundertigers team. This display is something unique to displays at Sanicole and Kleine Brogel, though it has also been performed at NATO Tiger Meet exercises in the past. It is not an aerobatic display and instead is more of role demonstration with the aircraft performing passes in a loose battle formation as well as some closer formation circuit flying.
Undoubtedly, this was a massive improvement on the 2022 Spottersday with just enough to keep visitors occupied the entire day. Combining it with the local families’ days also worked quite nicely and it proved to be a nice relaxing day ahead of the more frenetic airshow weekend. However, it still seems a far cry from the pre-pandemic events where there were plenty of static aircraft to augment the flying action.
