A multinational helicopters exercise, conducted by the European Defence Agency and hosted by France took place from 6 to 20 March 2009 in Gap (in the Alps, South East of France). It brought together aircraft and crews from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Hungary and Spain, as well as personnel from nine other EU Member States.
At their bilateral Summit in March 2008, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy underlined the need to improve the availability of helicopters for crisis management operations. Following this high-level meeting, the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency (EDA) selected “Increasing Availability for ESDP Operations” as one of the twelve priorities, when endorsing the Agency’s Capability Development Plan.
The Agency’s work strand for near-term results is “training” to quickly improve helicopter availability. Helicopter crews in some European countries are not trained to fly in more austere conditions, such as mountainous terrain. The Agency is developing a “Helicopter Tactics Programme” (HTP) for such training at the European level. This HTP will become operational in 2010.
In the context of preparing the HTP the Agency is conducting two practical exercises, with help from the two nations who started the initiative. France hosted “Gap 09” and the UK will conduct language training and operational field training in April.
The aim of “Gap 09” was to develop interoperability through mutual understanding. As it was the first exercise of its type, lessons learned from the exercise will be important, in particular to assess such exercises can be organised in the future.
Goals of the exercise
Aircrew training, mainly on Support Helicopters (which are a specific shortfall), during their pre-deployment phase, focussing on interoperability (procedures, language and tactical skills, lessons learned and best practices sharing) and mountain flying (one of the main features of crisis management theatres of operations, where participating crews will be deployed); Carrying out a test bed exercise with a view to building up future exercises and possible other initiatives adapted to aircrew training requirements, based on the gained experience and additional studies - currently ongoing through EDA.
Participating Member States
The number of participating helicopters had been limited to fit with optimum results and facilitate a responsive exercise organisation in terms of logistics. Participating member states and helicopters were the following:
Belgium: one A 109; Czech Republic: three Mi 17; France: two Gazelles Viviane and up to three Tigre; Hungary: one Mi 17; Spain: one CH 47 and one Cougar. Moreover, “Gap 09” was supported by Luxembourg and hosted by France.
Around 25 experts from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden and United Kingdom, as well as experts from other organisations (EAG, JAPCC), acting with specific roles in the exercise, also participated.