My name is Jan-Peter ‘JP’ van Viegen, here a little story about me and my drive behind this website. I grew up close to Soesterberg air base in the Netherlands. This was during the cold war era. The 32nd TFS “Wolfhounds”was stationed at Soesterberg and had just received their first F-15A’s. Everyday I used to see the F-15’s and visiting USAFE aircraft flying over our village, it made an everlasting impression. With time the passion grew and every spare minute I had, I would visit the base to watch the Eagles fly. Sadly like many other USAF units in Europe the squadron was disbanded in 1994. I sure miss that sound of an Eagle Four ship overhead breaking off into the pattern.
I started working as a mechanical engineer. But being infected by the flying virus, all I could think about was flying. I got the opportunity to start with my flight training. By coincidence my first check was begin done by one of the first USAF F-15 pilots ‘Bill Tobey’ , who was retired from the air force and started instructing and examining at Scottsdale, AZ. After completing flight training I started flying in Business Aviation and later on with a Dutch Airline company, besides flying I worked in various position such as Flight Safety, Flight Operations, Training, Flight Instructor at CAE on the Bombardier Challengers and Embraer Phenom 300 and with the Dutch Civil Aviation Authority.
Besides working in aviation I also caught the collector bug. I started collecting USAF patches and with collecting patches I wanted to learn more and more about the unit history, the design of the patch, the mission of the squadron etc. The patch history, the different styles, used, every two three years they change, deployment patch, heritage patch, Friday patch, etc. I display them is special folders with the name of the contributor and time piece on when he served with the unit. I would like to keep the heritage alive from all the units within the USAF and ANG. With this grew the interested in stating a museum which I hope to accomplish in the near future. To share the information I have started this online museum and hope to share the information with all of you who are interested and preserve the rich squadron history and heritage.
Thank you for visiting I hope you enjoy the website.
Here an example of the variations from the 390th Fighter Squadron patch from 1992 to 2000 which is far from complete
I store all the patches in special plastic folders to keep them in mint condition. The folders are in my Aviation room together with all the other memorabilia I collect (scarves. Name-tags, squadron plaques etc). Below you can view a glimpse, it is always open to veterans and contributors to visit and browse through. If you would like to donate, you are more than welcome please contact me at janpeter@skytrailer.nl
A part of the collection and preservation.
Dan Linus Lee
Another project I did was for a dear friend Col. Dan “Linus” Lee whom I met through patch collecting. Dan had kept a patch from each of the units he flew in and donated them to my Air Force collection. Sadly Linus passed away suddenly and way to soon. As a tribute I made two Biography books one for his wife and one that is displayed in my collection. My goal is to preserve the flying career of Linus and the history of each patch and unit. Below a couple of images of his Biography Patch book.
Mike Sailor Frankel
I received an amazing donation from Mike Frankel, that I sorted out and placed in a separate book about Sailor and all the great memorabilia he donated. Here are a few photos of this display. If you get the chance to visit the Netherlands, make sure to tell me. You are more than welcome to visit and browse through my USAF collection with a cold Heineken.
