Take A Look At These Amazing Photos Of Yesterday’s NATO Tiger Meet 2021 Spotter Day

NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Some of the highlights of the NTM2021 Spotter Day. (All images David Parody unless otherwise stated)

The second Spotter Day of NATO Tiger Meet (NTM) 2021 was held yesterday at Beja Air Base, Portugal. And here are some gorgeous shots.

The flying segment of this year’s edition of NATO Tiger Meet (NTM) 2021, organized by the Portuguese Air Force, at Beja Air Base, ended today, May 13, 2021, at lunch time. Some transports have already arrived at Air Base No. 11 (BA11) to pick things up as the drills officially finishes tomorrow.

We have already provided a lot of details about the exercise in a previous post we published after our correspondent David Parody, attended the exercise’s Media Day on May 3. David went again to Beja AB on May 12, for the second Spotter Day arranged by the Portuguese Air Force and NTM 2021’s host unit, the Squadron 301 “Jaguares”.

According to the Portuguese Air Force, about 160 photography and military aviation enthusiasts of various nationalities attended the NTM 2021 Spotter Day.

During the morning, they had the opportunity to watch and photograph an “Elephant Walk”, with 23 aircraft taxiing down the runway before take off.

NTM 2021 Elephant Walk. (Image credit: Portuguese Air Force)

During the afternoon, the spotter’s saw more take-offs and landings, including those of the F-16s from Poland, Greece and Portugal, the F-18s from Switzerland and the F-2000 Typhoons from Italy. Along with the fast jets, the Spotter Day featured some pretty interesting helicopter action, involving the Italian AB.212ICO and HH-101A Caesar helicopters of the 21° Gruppo (Squadron) of the Italian Air Force, which operated with the Portuguese EH-101 Merlin of the Esquadra 751.

NTM 2021 Spotters Day
The Italian Air Force HH-101A
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Nice trio of helicopters, including an AB-212ICO of the 21° Gruppo.

Surprise visit was the French Air Force E-3 which just did a flypast. Swiss Pilatus PC-24 and Portuguese C-295 were other much appreciated visitors. Anyway, in this article you can find some of the highlights photographed by David Parody at Beja AB.

NTM 2021 Spotters Day
F-16 of the 301 Sqn of the Portuguese Air Force.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Portuguese Tiger
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Shaka sign
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Italian Typhoon. Note the centerline Litening pod.
The Italian Air Force F-2000 of the 12° Gruppo.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
HAF F-16 on the go.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Portuguese F-16.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
HAF pilot close up.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Hellenic Air Force F-16.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Polish Viper launching.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Special Colored F-16 of the host unit.
NTM 2021 Spotters Day
Portuguese EH-101.
About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.