Born with the F-16

The Royal Netherlands Air Force began flying the F-16 in 1979 as the replacement for the F-104G Starfighter, and the solo display team was formed the same year, giving its first demonstration at Twenthe Air Base in September 1979. For almost four decades the team showed the Fighting Falcon at Dutch and foreign air shows, and Wikipedia records a demonstration at Edwards Air Force Base in the United States in 2006.

A roving team

The team was small: a display pilot, two instructors and seven ground crew. Unusually, it moved to a different squadron or base every two years, so the display passed through the F-16 units in turn; it was based at Volkel from 2005 to 2009, an exception to the two-year rule, and was last based at Leeuwarden in Friesland. The last display pilot listed by Wikipedia was Kapitein Jeroen “Slick” Dickens of 323 Squadron.

The Orange Lion

No single livery ran through its history. In April 2009 the team unveiled an orange scheme with a Dutch lion on the upper surfaces, known as the Orange Lion, which remained in use to the end. The same year the team won the jet-category prize for the best display at Reims-Champagne Air Base.

Stood down

Operational demands caught up with it. According to Up in the Sky, the team’s last show was in 2015, after which it could no longer find the pilots and ground crew willing and available to spend four to five days a week away during the May to September season; attempts to assemble it for individual shows between 2015 and 2018 failed. On 17 December 2018 the Air Force announced that the team was permanently disbanded, adding that any future demonstration team would fly the F-35.