Hot Blade 2018 Helicopter Exercise Started with Familiarisation Flight

The 12th exercise of the European Defence Agency’s (EDA) Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP) started with an opening ceremony, and was followed by a familiarisation flight. Our country has already participated several times in similar arrangements. It shows our dedication that in 2017 Hungary hosted the exercise Fire Blade 2017 in Pápa. Then the main focus was on the planning and the conduct of air operations requiring the participation of several branches of service, with life-like situations, and complex tasks. A new element was the active involvement of forward air controllers in the conduct combined with live firing. This year the objective is to enhance interoperability at the tactical level between air crews, to teach, learn and jointly practice helicopter Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) both day and night, under simple and challenging weather conditions, in marine, hot and mountainous environment.

In the first part of the exercise, the Belgian, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Portuguese and Slovenian helicopters, at Beja did a test flight in the airspace, which will be used during the operations of the exercise. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Austrian mentors got familiarised with the Hungarian capabilities, and the Portuguese Special Forces practiced loading and unloading.

The exercise jointly conducted by the participating nations provides an excellent possibility for practice not only for the aircrews, but also for the ground troops and the serving and supporting staff, as without them there would be no flight.

Photos of the author