Joost de Raaf (1976) is an aircraft maintenance instructor in the Royal Netherlands Air Force. Born and raised near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, aviation runs through his veins as long as he can remember. After his study aircraft maintenance he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force in November 1999. For thirteen years he worked in maintenance on the F-16 at Volkel Airbase. Eventually, he was qualified to release an F-16 for flight after critical maintenance.
Deployed twice, he spent around eight months in total in Afghanistan performing maintenance and scheduled inspections on the F-16. In 2014 he left the maintenance organisation to became an Junior Instructor, still based at Volkel Airbase. In 2020 he became a Senior Instructor and was promoted to Sergeant-Major.
Recently he followed and passed, the type rating course on the F-35 and simultaneously supported the military technical school.