Alexander Schnitger

Lieutenant General Alexander Schnitger in front of an F-35 fighter plane

Alexander "Sander" Schnitger (born November 3, 1958 in Rotterdam ; † June 27, 2020 ) was a Dutch lieutenant general who was in command of the Royal Air Force from 2012 to 2016 .

Life

Alexander Schnitger's military career began in 1979 in Breda at the Koninklijke Militaire Academie , after which he completed his training as a jet pilot as part of the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas . In 1984 he was assigned to the 314 Squadron and initially flew the type Forthrop -5 , in 1988 he was at times formation leader of the aerobatic formation "Double Dutch" on this type. In 1990 he retrained to the General Dynamics F-16 and was simultaneously transferred to the 312 Squadron at the Volkel military airfield near Uden .

In 1992 he was appointed head of the 306 Squadron , a reconnaissance squadron, also in Volkel. As part of Operation Deny Flight in the Balkans , he was stationed with part of his squadron at the Italian air base Villafranca in 1994 . After his return to the Netherlands, he became an operations officer in the 312 Squadron . In 1995 he switched to the air force staff in The Hague , and from August 1998 to July 1999 he completed the staff officer course ( Hogere Staf Vorming ) at the Defensie Leergangen Institute .

He was then appointed commander of the 315 Squadron in Volkel and promoted to lieutenant colonel. Another foreign mission followed in 1999, again over the Balkans, as the commander of a joint Dutch- Belgian contingent that deployed the F-16 over the former Yugoslavia . This time the Amendola Air Base , also in Italy, served as the base .

In 2001, a staff assignment followed, as a planner in the defense staff. In 2004 he went to Kalkar as a colonel to the Combined Air Operations Center there as director of all operations that the command commands. In 2005 he became the commander of all units at the Volkel Air Base, before returning to the air force staff in 2008. He was promoted to major general in December 2009 and took command of the Royal Air Force in March 2012. In 2016 he handed over the command to Dennis Luyt .

Web links

Commons : Alexander Schnitger  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lieutenant General Dennis Luyt on Twitter. Retrieved June 28, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lieutenant-generaal Alexander Schnitger - Commandant Luchtstrijdkrachten. (No longer available online.) Royal Air Force, formerly the original ; accessed on March 20, 2020 (Dutch).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
3. ^ Luyt nieuwe Commandant Luchtstrijdkrachten. In: Defensie.nl. April 12, 2016, accessed November 19, 2016 (Dutch).