Live Fire Exercise Completed with Excellent Results

The after action review shows that the personnel participating in the training have completed the missions with excellent results – said Brig.-Gen. Csaba Ugrik on the Kecskemét tarmac upon the JAS-39s’ return home, in his report given to Brig.-Gen. Albert Sáfár, Air Force Chief, HDF Joint Force Command. The commander of the HDF 59th Dezső Szentgyörgyi" Air Base traveled the 3000-km distance between Vidsel Air Base and Kecskemét aboard a Gripen with tail number 42 that was flown by Lt.-Col. Tamás Fekete. Flying en route, they had an unexpected great experience, as they had a chance to see a solar eclipse while flying 30 miles off Stockholm at an altitude of 41 000 feet.

During their stay in Sweden, the Hungarian Gripen pilots received training in three different fields. Of these, they certainly found a missile firing campaign to be most exciting one. In the first days of Exercise Air Superiority, they conducted a live-firing campaign with AIM–9L Sidewinder missiles. Thanks to the ground crew’s careful work, the missiles were already put on the wingtips, awaiting the pilots, who took off in aircraft pairs to leave the area of Vidsel Air Base. As a unique feature, the base has a range where missions against air and ground targets can be carried out in an area of around 60 km in length. After the take-off, the pilots first had to intercept a drone and then an infrared flare released and towed by the drone. After a successful lock-on, they were tasked to fire missiles on the flare. Although this was the first time that all pilots of the designated crews launched live Sidewinders, they managed to destroy each acquired target.

The other theme of the exercise was a live gunnery executed with 27mm Mauser internal cannons. The pilots are already familiar with this kind of weapon, but this time the target had some surprise in store, as it was an elongated windsock with a built-in detector, which was towed by a Learjet 35 passenger plane on the end of an 800m wire cable. The pilots finished the exercise with executing low-level flights. During the mission, they had to navigate several times at an altitude of 150 meters above the ground.

Photo: Sándor Galambos