
NATO Tiger Meet is an annual exercise that gathers squadrons sporting Tiger (or feline) emblems. Planes that attend it, usually get painted in tiger outfits. As happened during 2014 edition in Germany.
NATO Tiger Meet (NTM) is a two-week multi-national mid-size exercise that includes all types of air-to-air and air-to-ground and a wide variety of support missions, comprising CSAR and large COMAOs (Composite Air Operations).
NTM2014 (with spotters days on Jun. 19 and 23) was held at Schleswig – Jagel, in northern Germany.
Along with the first Eurofighter Typhoon in tiger color scheme, several other aircraft attended the drills with brand new, flamboyant tiger color schemes: French Rafales, Polish F-16 Block 52+ jets, Turkish F-16Cs, and Czech JAS-39 Gripen sported cool tiger liveries.
The images in this post, showing some of the most fancy special colored combat planes, were taken by The Aviationist’s photographer Tony Lovelock during NTM2014.
Who wins?
Czech AF JAS-39 Gripen 211 Sqn
Czech AF JAS-39 211 Sqn
Royal Netherlands AF F-16 313 Sqn
Belgian AF F-16 31 Sqn
Polish AF F-16 Block 52+ 6 Sqn
Czech AF JAS-39 Gripen 211 Sqn
French AF Mirage 2000-5F ECE 05.330
French AF Rafale EC 1/7
German AF Eurofighter Typhoon Fighterwing 74.
I mean they are nice eh… the only question is, what’s the point? Is it a “pimp my jet fighter reality show” or an actual defense exercise?
It is almost a small scale Red Flag as is held at Nellis AFB, NV, USA. I was a participant in Red Flag 12-2 in February of 2012. I was the crew chief on and F-16D with in a Test and Evaluation Squadron from Edwards AFB, CA, USA. I am a civilian employee of the USAF.
I’d quit my job to just ATTEND red flag. nevermind crew one. need any co-ops?
Because its a tradition…if you had googled “NATO Tiger Meet association”, you would have known why.
And give me a break over the cost involved for the taxpayer. It is negligible at best. In fact, in many cases, the painters have to buy the paint with their own money and have to work overtime to complete those special color schemes.