National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

a Ce n t u ry o f mi l i ta ry av i at i o n in t H e ne t H e r l a n d s, 1911-2011 221
by twelve Fokker F-27 Friendships, with a maximum range of 2,500 kilometres and
a maximum payload of approximately 3,000 kilograms. In addition to these transport
aircraft, Fokker also provided various series of training aircraft and built, under
licence, a considerable number of fighter aircraft for the RNLAF during the Cold
War period. Fokker’s batch production and assembly building of, among others, the
Gloster Meteor, Hawker Hunter, F-104 Starfighter and the F-16 gave an enormous
boost to the post-war recovery of the domestic aircraft industry sector in the Netherlands.
With the introduction of the Hiller H-23B Raven in 1955, the helicopter made its
debut in the ranks of the RNLAF. The rotary-wing aircraft were assigned to Light
Aircraft Group (LAG) squadrons, an element that, until the 1970s, was also responsible
for various types of fixed-wing light aircraft. Of all air force units, the LAG
was the element that worked together most closely with the army. If, in peace time,
the RNLAF had the operational command over the Light Aircraft Group, in wartime
and during exercises, operational command switched to the commander of 1
Army Corps. The range of tasks of the LAG was gradually extended during the Cold
War. Starting in the 1950s with transport and communications flights, the LAG was
later tasked with carrying out reconnaissance flights and supporting army exercises.
With the replacement of the Hiller in the 1960s by the Sud Aviation Alouette II and
Alouette III helicopters and the advent of the MBB Bölkow Bo-105C helicopter
from 1975, the deployment scope was expanded even further. From the 1970s, area
surveillance, liaison missions, artillery fire control, medical evacuations and forward
air control (FAC) were added to the LAG’s tasks.
The end of the Cold War necessitated a fundamental “rethink” of the role of the
armed forces. For the RNLAF, the new focus of the Dutch defence policy manifested
itself mainly in the purchase of a new air transport fleet and the introduction of more
effective helicopter weapon systems. The latter led to the procurement of light and
medium-heavy transport helicopters, later followed by the influx of attack helicopters.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact ushered in a
period of drastic downsizing and restructuring of the Dutch armed forces. The “cashing
in on the peace dividend”, which was to be incorporated in the defence policy of
consecutive governments of various political persuasions, also had a strong impact
on the RNLAF. This coincided with a period in which the Netherlands was pursuing
an active foreign policy, as a result of which the armed forces not only carried
out a large number of humanitarian missions, but also made a sizeable contribution
to crisis response operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Thus, the
armed forces were confronted with the apparent paradox of having to vastly improve
its performance while being given substantially fewer resources to do so.
The reorganisations and the spending cuts, in combination with the numerous international
missions in which the Netherlands participated, required the transformation
of the air force into an organisation that was tailored to the new circumstances.