Two US-made JSF fighter jets will arrive at the Leeuwarden air base at 20.00 on Monday evening for three weeks of tests, mainly involving noise levels.

The arrival of the jets will be shown live on the defence ministry’s YouTube channel and thousands of plane spotters have been heading to Friesland to wait for their arrival. It is the first time the jets will have been seen outside the US.

The aim of the visit is partly to allow people living close to the base, and the Volkel airbase in Noord-Brabant, to compare the noise generated by a JSF jet and an F-16, the defence ministry said.

According to news agency ANP, hotels in Leeuwarden are fully booked as plane fans from all over Europe flock to the Frisian capital to see the planes arrive.

‘You’ll easily get 1,000 spotters during a major exercise but that could double today,’ Joop de Groot of the Leeuwarden plane spotters’ group AGL said

Political dispute

After years of wrangling, in 2014 the government agreed the Netherlands will buy 37 JSFs to replace the current fleet of ageing F-16s.

The cost of the 37 planes was put then at €4.6bn, while operating costs will run at ‘a maximum’ €285m a year. Dutch industry has so far earned over €1bn from its role in the development of the JSF but this could mount up to €9bn, ministers say.