SAR Meet 2009 

Words and photography Remco Donselaar, additional photographs Michael van der Mee.

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Search and Rescue (SAR) flight of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, a SAR meet was held at Leeuwarden Air Force Base from May 25-29. SAR units from Europe and Canada were invited by 303 Squadron based at Leeuwarden to celebrate the jubilee and to compete against each other for the 2009 trophy.

Established April 26, 1959 at former Air Base Ypenburg as part of 298 Squadron the primary tasks of the SAR flight were search and rescue and tactical air rescue. Flying the Alouette II and later on the Alouette III also photo flights were part of the units task. With the move of 298 Squadron to the former Air Base at Soesterberg the SAR flight was relocated at Leeuwarden. From that moment another task was assigned to the SAR flight: evacuating civil patients from the Wadden Isles to hospitals at the main land.

In 1998 the SAR flight officialy became RNLAF 303 (SAR) squadron with the motto 'Servans in periculo'. Four years earlier a new helicopter, the AB412SP was introduced in the SAR flight. Due to the mainly yellow color the nickname of the heli's became 'Tweety'.

Although the amount of participants was small, the diversity and exclusivity was large! Delivered by a CC-177, star of this SAR meet was the Canadian CH-146 Griffon from 424 SAR and Transport Squadron based at CFB Trenton. From the same Bell helicopter family a Slovenian 412HP was present and from Belgium and Germany a Sea King took part. From the SAR units based at Den Helder/de Kooy a civil S-61N and RNN Lynx completed the group of participants.

At Tuesday 26^th and Wednesday 27^th a rally was flown by the participating helicopters. The first day saw some external movements and missions to Drachten airport and a location just outside the harbour of Hindeloopen. The second day saw an agility exercise at Leeuwarden Air Base. Main part was picking up a bucket filled with water and moving it at and through some objects. With the heavy wind it made it not less hard to achieve this!

We would like to thank 303 Squadron and the BIC of Leeuwarden Air Base for their hospitality.