Exercise Hot Blade came to a close this week. The major helicopter exercise brought together assets from Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as observers from Sweden and the United Kingdom.
On 12th July, the exercise was visited by the Portuguese Minister of Defence, Mr. José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, who welcomed Mr. Jean-Marie Halsdorf, the Luxembourg Minister of Defence, and Ms. Claude France-Arnould, the European Defence Agency's Chief Executive.
The participating crews honed their skills through a series of complex operations flown over the past two weeks. They practiced in a hot, high and dusty environment that simulates the challenging conditions that participant forces encounter in deploying to current theatres of operation, taking into consideration the lessons learned from recent scenarios like Afghanistan and Libya. Their operations took place in against a highly sophisticated intelligence scenario, to increase the realism of the training, and they worked together across language and cultural barriers, and in cooperation with other land and air assets.
In a speech thanking the Portuguese authorities, Ms. Arnould stressed the success of the exercise is, saying Hot Blade "builds up into a coordinated EDA effort to address Europe’s helicopter shortfall...to provide all of our member states with the aerial capabilities they need". She added "We are stronger together, and through coordination and cooperation we will address each shortfall in Europe’s military power".
The exercise generated considerable attention, with all Portuguese national television stations covering the event, 1200 visitors to Ovar air base, 11613 visits to the exercise website and some 79 articles produced by journalists from across Europe. This public and media interest underlines the importance of defence to the public in these challenging times. That interest was matched by the satisfaction of the exercise controllers and participants, who were delighted with the opportunity to gain flying hours in realistically complex operations.
Further information about the exercise is available here.
