My name is Henk  "OMAR" van der Lugt , and since May of 1996 I have been the official SunDowner Historian. I am from the Netherlands, 49-years-old, and I'm married with a daughter.

I am an employee with the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines since 01 September 1979, I am a  Ground Engineer  licensed for the MD-11, B777 and the B767.

My involvement with the SunDowners started a long time ago, when I was about 6-7 years old, I got a plastic model of a F-8 Crusader carrying sharkteeth markings , now I know that the markings were totally wrong, but anyhow this triggered probably my affiliation with the SunDowners.  

In 1976, I started writing to every US Navy Fighter squadron, although I received a lot of photo and other items from the squadrons, the SunDowners always answered me, I got photo's, patches, histories and all kind of other items.

So, I started to collect all kinds of memorabilia from VF-11, VF-11A and VF-111 SunDowners.

1993 was for me one of the best years, I finally was able to visit the SunDowners at NAS Miramar, this was made possible by two former SunDowners, namely Kermit "Tim" Enander and Ralph W. McCort.

The visit was great, allowed to take photo's and meet the SunDowners for real, awesome!

In 1994 there were some rumours that the SunDowners would be disestablished in the near future, well this was true .

16 February 1995 , the SunDowners were disestablished , and I was there , I was personally invited by the CAG-15 , it trully was a sad day.

Tim Enander was also at the Disestablishment Ceremony and he invited me to come to the SunDowner reunion the next year.

And so I did, I brought all of my SunDowner Memorabilia with me and the SunDowners were quite impressed so it seemed.

During the Banquet, on the last evening, I was officially appointed as the SunDowner Historian.

Over the years I kept on researching the History of the SunDowners , went to the Tailhook Associations Headquarters , The National Museum of Naval Aviation and the Naval Historical Branch. In 2006, I was attending the Tailhook Convention in Reno, it was there were I got the tip of Art Martin of the Tomcat Association, that the US Navy was looking for a heritage and name for a new to be formed squadron.

After the Flag panel, on the saturday afternoon, I went to Adm. Jeremy Lemmons and I suggested the heritage and name of the SunDowners, he told me that he would put them on the list .

Together with my friend , the former VFC-13 CO Jim "Guido" DiMatteo whose father was a SunDowner as well and I , are a kind of responsible  for getting back the SunDowners .

On the first of November 2006 (1-11-'06 ) VFC-13 Detachment Key West was officially redesignated VFC-111 SunDowners.

The SunDowners of today are flying an Adversary mission from NAS Key West  and they are doing a great job.

I would like to ask all SunDowners, to keep me in mind, the SunDowner Historian, as they have SunDowner Memorabilia in storage and want to part of it, or share it with me.

You can always donate it to me, and I will take good care of it .

If you have any questions about the SunDowners old or new, please don't hesistate and write me an e-mail !!

Many thanks for your consideration!