At the occasion of Green Blade’s Distinguished Visitors Day (DVD), the Ministers of Defence of Belgium and Luxembourg, Pieter de Crem and Jean-Marie Halsdorf as well as Claude-France Arnould, Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency, visited Kleine Brogel Airbase. The Belgian Air Component is currently hosting the European Defence Agency’s latest helicopter exercise with 550 participants from Belgium, Italy, Germany and Spain and supported by Luxembourg. Interoperability, deployability and cost-efficiency of joint missions are at the centre of the three weeks exercise.
“Green Blade is an excellent example of pooling and sharing of military capabilities. Today is an unique opportunity to see how various teams from different countries can become one unit in not even three weeks.” said Claude-France Arnould at the opening of the DVD.
Exercise Green Blade runs from 18 September to 5 October 2012, hosted by the Belgian Air Component. Linked with Exercise Pegasus, a special forces training exercise, the two groups work closely together on numerous missions. The two exercises draw together some 550 personnel from four countries (Belgium, Italy and Germany for Green Blade and Belgium, Italy and Spain for Pegasus) as well as observers from Bulgaria, Canada and the Czech Republic. The exercise is supported by the host nation with an additional 200 people as role players, real life and medical support, safety and security, as well as the manning of a Forward Arming and Refuelling Point (FARP).
In total, 15 helicopters of different types are currently involved in the combined Green Blade/Pegasus exercise. Italy operates transport (CH-47) and attack (A-129) helicopters, Germany and Belgium two types of utility helicopters (UH-1D and A-109). Other aircraft used by Belgium are two C-130s, two B-Hunters and up to four F-16s.
During the entire exercise, helicopters execute around 65 missions of steadily increasing complexity, from typical Special Operations-related missions, such as insertion/ extraction, Direct Action, Personnel Recovery, and Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance, by day and by night, in single or multiship configurations. The exercise will also include more conventional types of missions, such as Airmobile Operations, Recce & Surveillance and Medical Evacuation, as well as non-tactical training missions, such as Night Vision Goggle-flying, Nap of Earth flight and Gun Firing. These missions will add up to around 650 crucial Flying Hours.
EDA Helicopter Activity
The exercise is one part of wider ongoing EDA work to boost deployability, as requested by Member States. Green Blade is the latest in a series of increasingly effective helicopter exercises, held in France, Spain, Italy and Portugal since 2009 under the Helicopter Exercise Programme. The programme has so far involved 123 helicopters and 227 crews. Exercise Green Blade is the first of these exercises run by the new Core Planning Team, which will steer the programme in the long-term, incorporating lessons learned and enhancing helicopter deployability for Member States.
The EDA has also worked with its Member States to create the Helicopter Tactics Course in the UK, with 18 crews trained thus far. A new ‘train-the-trainers’ initiative is planned for this year; the European Qualified Helicopter Tactics Course, which is a joint effort by Sweden and the UK, aims to create a recognised tactics instructor cadre across Europe. Work has also started to harmonize helicopter flying training across participating Member States; trial courses have been delivered in Operational English Language learning and later this year, the EDA will conduct a capability concept demonstration into the use of distributed simulator training.
EDA and Pooling & Sharing
The Agency’s helicopter work sits alongside a succession of EDA programmes to pool and share assets and resources, enhancing the overall military capabilities of the EDA’s Member States in challenging times for defence. Similar programmes include the Tactical Air Transport strand, which recently held a major air exercise in Zaragoza, Spain, the EDA’s work in training Counter-IED professionals, and the recently launched pilot programme to pool demand for efficient procurement. The Agency is currently working on eleven Pooling & Sharing priority areas: Helicopter Training Programme, Maritime Surveillance Networking, European Satellite Communication Procurement Cell, Modular Field Hospitals, Air to Air Refuelling, Future Military Satellite Communications, Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance, Pilot Training, European Transport Hubs, Smart Munitions, Naval Logistics and Training. This exercise provides an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the advances made by the EDA’s Pooling & Sharing initiative.
Image credit: (c) BAF Bart Rosselle
More pictures are available on Flickr.