Roelof-Jan Gort catches up with the Belgian Air Component’s F-16 demonstration team and finds out what it takes to be a ‘Viper’ showman.
The Belgian Air Component received its first F-16 Fighting Falcon (the Belgianmanufactured Block 1 F-16B FB-01) on December 11, 1978. The following year this small but ambitious air arm inaugurated its F-16 ‘demo’ team – a tradition that has continued ever since. By the time the 2017 season closed in November, a total of 17 pilots had acted as ambassadors for the Belgian military over the years. For the 2017 season, the honour fell to Captain-commandant Tom De Moortel, known as ‘Gizmo’, who ended his time in the F-16 demo team with a final flight on November 10. “By the time I was eight years old my mind was set. I was always convinced that I would be a pilot. I never had a single thought about doing something else,” he told AFM. Gizmo joined the Belgian Air Component in May 1996 and completed elementary training on the SF260M/D. Finishing his training on the Alpha Jet, his career got under way flying the C-130.
Having returned to Beauvechain in 2001 he became an SF260 instructor, before moving to Kleine Brogel at the end of 2005 to begin his conversion onto the F-1…
