European Air Transport Fleet observers attend a Belgium flying exercise in Portugal

Brussels, 29 March 2011, News EDA

Belgium is organising a flying exercise national block training period between 21 March and 15 April in Portugal. This training block is running in parallel with the Portuguese exercise “REAL THAW 11”.

The major objectives of this Belgium block training are to:

• update different type of qualifications;

• perform short field landings, formation flying, and threat reactions during tactical scenarios;

• perform tactical approaches and off-loads (engines running).

Taking this opportunity, a group of ten observers from EDA’s European Air Transport Fleet (EATF) programme will be at Ovar Airfield, in Portugal, to follow this tactical air transport flying event. The objective is to improve interoperability, share best practices and to further promote the development of EATF at practical operator level.

This cooperation will help preparing the EATF flying training of 2012 in Spain and eventually create a European advanced tactics course for airlift in the near future.