Dutch RAF fly-by Honister as part of operation TAC BLAZE

The Royal Netherlands Air Force has been conducting Exercise TAC BLAZE, based at Carlisle Airport, flying over the range at Royal Air Force Spadeadam and into the Cumbria and Northumberland countryside for over three weeks. 

The aim of TAC BLAZE is to train and qualify aircrew in low-level flying techniques and to operate in the field of Electronic Warfare.

Eleven aircraft, including Chinook, Apache and Cougar, and around 250 personnel have been participating in the exercise.

Dutch air force practice low-flying across Cumbria (Image: d)

The armed forces members decided to pay a second visit to the Honister Pass, having visited during the weekend for a day of climbing and activities - but this time, they arrived in three Chinook helicopters. 

Lauren Beaty, who runs activities at Honister, said: "They brought up a load of the troops to do some extra adventure training with us.  

"There was kind of a joke that they got the bus to us when they had all these fancy aircraft they had been flying around in all week. 

"When they said they were going to do a flyover as part of their low-flying training, we thought it might be one plane. 

One of the Netherland's Chinook Helicopters (Image: Lee Cummings)

"We weren't expecting three absolutely ginormous helicopters to be tickling the roof," she said. 

The Dutch RAF will be coming back to Cumbria as they look to take advantage of the differing terrains. 

The squad also hopes to make another visit to Honister Slate Mine as well.  

"We work with other British military groups for adventure training and that's something we've been trying to push this year. 

"It's great that we've now had internationals who've come from overseas come directly to us," Lauren said. 

Dutch RAF have been using Carlisle airport as part of training (Image: Lee Cummings)

On operation TAC BLAZE, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Oostrom, from the Royal Netherlands Air Force, said: "The facilities at RAF Spadeadam Range are excellent for training our aircrews, being so vast and with differing terrains, as well as the opportunity to fly against real threat systems.

"We are unable to conduct such realistic training at home, and we are therefore very grateful to be able to use RAF Spadeadam, having not been here since 2019.

"We are looking forward to using Spadeadam more frequently in the future," he said.