The NATO Tiger Meet brings together the squadrons of the various Armed Forces whose emblem bear a “tiger” and was first held in Italy fifty years ago (1973) at Cameri airbase. Thirty-five years after the last time, Italy hosted the exercise involving around 65 aircraft from over 10 countries, at Gioia del Colle airport, home of the 36th Wing “Caccia” of the Italian Air Force. After all those years this exercise still attracts a lot of photographers!
So, on Thursday 5 October 2023, a large group of photographers gathered Schiphol for a direct flight to Bari, in the South of Italy. After arrival at this small airport, the luggage was collected and some additional people greeted, before we boarded our bus for the coming days. As there were still some hours left in the day, we headed to the airbase to hopefully catch some Tigers. We were not disappointed as a full-scale mission was flown in the late afternoon, enabling us to catch the first ‘Tigers’ in beautiful evening light. After the last aircraft had landed, we headed out to our hotel at the coast for a nice evening of Italian Food and drinks.
