An F-16 fighter pilot grew a bulletproof mustache to honor a great fighter pilot and became Robin Olds’s look-alike.

Thomas “MET” Kristensen is a combat pilot of the Royal Danish Air Force.

Even though his name may be new to you, he’s actually quite famous, as “MET” is the man behind the world-famous Fox-2 selfie shot while he was firing an AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile from an RDAF F-16.

In an email to The Aviationist, Kristensen explains:

“I’ve just been deployed in Estonia with the Royal Danish Air Force F-16 detachment, to carry out air policing over the Baltic States. In this context, I acquired myself a bulletproof mustache in honor of a great fighter pilot who introduced it during the Vietnam War.”

The great pilot mentioned by “MET” is Robin Olds, a U.S. Air Force ace, with a combined total of 16 victories in World War II and the Vietnam War.

Olds, who retired as Brig. Gen. in 1973 and died in 2007 at the age of 84 (you can find many websites, books about him and his career), was also famous for the mustache he grew in Vietnam. The Wiki page has an entire section about Olds’s handlebar mustache.

Kristensen grew his own mustache to honor the legendary pilot and, as you can see in the pictures taken during the Baltic Air Policing deployment by photographer Casper Tybjerg, a Nikon Ambassador, the similarity with the original shots of Robin Olds is astounding.

Left is Col. Robin Olds (image from Wiki), right is “MET”.

Image credit: Casper Tybjerg and Wikipedia (via Thomas Kristensen)

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Here’s an unbelievable photo shot at Amari Airbase, Estonia.

Taken by photographer Gen Vagula at Ämari Airbase, Estonia, where the aircraft have been deployed to undertake Baltic States air policing duties, this awesome image shows four Royal Danish Air Force F-16 jets parked under a sky set alight by Aurora Borealis.

Aurora (“Aurora Borealis” or “Northern Lights” in the northern hemisphere and “Aurora Australis” or “Southern Lights” in the southern one) is a natural light display caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric charged particles with the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere).

Ämari, located some 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the southwest of Tallinn, is the second airbase used by NATO to perform QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) duties and provide air defense for those member states that have no fighter jets of their own to secure their airspaces: Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

NATO planes deployed to the Baltics (the other airbase is Siauliai in Lithuania), are often scrambled to intercept Russian planes flying to/from Kaliningrad oblast, performing long-range missions around Scandinavia and the British Isles, or simply spying in the Baltic region.

Image credit: Gen Vagula

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HQ video with RDAF F-16s low level over Greenland ice sheet.

Here’s another interesting footage filmed with GoPro cameras of a Royal Danish Air Force F-16 flying along the ice rim east of Kangerlussuaq, to the DYE-2 radar station, over the icefjord near Ilulissat, over the inspectionship Knud Rasmussen, and over the town of Ilussisat where the polar explorer Knud Rasmussen was born.

The RDAF deployed three F-16s from the Fighter Wing Skrydstrup to Greenland. Only two aircraft were fitted with 600 gal extra-tanks borrowed from Portuguese Air Force and and these two (with arctic-day glow missiles – the remaining aircraft was probably a spare) deployed north to Thule AB and south to Nuuk (Greenlands capital).

H/T to Eggert Norðdahl for providing some more details about the RDAF deployment and to John Kristensen for the link to the video

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Royal Danish Air Force F-16 planes have deployed to Greenland to undertake an Arctic mission.  Fortunately, Danish pilots took their GoPro cameras aboard.

According to the Flyvevåbnet (Royal Danish Air Force), on Aug. 5 two RDAF F-16s from Skrydstrup deployed to Thule airbase in Greenland, to undertake the first ever “Arctic mission” aimed at training F-16 aircrews in the Arctic SAR (Search And Rescue) mission.

The aircraft arrived in Greenland for the 2-day exercise with a stop-over at Kangerlussuaq (Søndre Strømfjord) another airport in Greenland.

The Arctic scenario has become one of the Danish defense priorities: among all the other things, the RDAF could be asked to quickly deploy fighter planes to the island to perform surveillance as well as SAR support tasks around the Arctic Circle.

Once again, RDAF pilots took some interesting selfies using their GoPro cameras.

Image credit: RDAF

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This is not covered by warranty.

Royal Danish Air Force personnel love to film their F-16s using air-to-air and air-to-surface armament. A GoPro screenshot of a RDAF pilot firing an AIM-9 Sidewinder produced one of the coolest selfie ever taken from a fighter jet.

But this love for “action footages” can have some side effects especially if the camera is positioned a bit too close to the ground target of an Mk-84 2,000-lb bomb.

Watch what happens about the 02:30 mark:

Ok, it’s not a direct hit, as the camera is only capsized by the shock wave of the bomb. Still, shall we consider it a sort-of Blue-on-Blue incident?

By the way, the footage is interesting as it shows M61 20mm gun strafing runs as well as Mk-82 500-lb bomb drops on the range.

H/T Matthew Markezin-Press for the heads-up

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