Aerial Combat And Target Tracking With Gripens

Even though according to the original plans the invited guests, among them General (eng.) László Tömböl, Chief of Defence Staff, MoD, and Major General József Kovács, Deputy Commander, HDF Joint Forces Command, would have monitored the preparation and takeoff of Swedish and Hungarian Gripens, as well as the L–39 Albatroses and the MiG–29 fighter planes of the Hungarian Air Force.

The weather, however, interfered with the plans: due to the strong gale and cloudburst the flights had to be called off for security reasons, therefore the guests had to settle for a shortened program.

At the briefing held at the beginning of the event, Lieutenant Colonel Csaba Ugrik, the flight operations chief of the Base and the flight director of the exercise told the audience that as of 5 October, aerial tactical exercise called ‘Lion Effort 2009’, organized jointly by the Swedish and the Hungarian Air Force has begun, with the participation of the 1st tactical squadron – the Puma (cougar) company – of the HDF 59th ‘Dezső Szentgyörgyi’ Aviation Base, the pilots of the Swedish Air Combat School, and the personnel of the HDF 12th ‘Arrabona’ Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base, and the HDF 54th Veszprém Air Surveillance Regiment. The execution of the exercise is also supported by the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control forces’ (NATO AEW&C) E–3A (AWACS) aircraft that has been stationing at the Kecskemét Aviation Base in the past few days.

It was mentioned at the briefing that the concept of the exercise that ends on 15 October was that the countries operating Jas–39 Gripen fighters could share their experiences in the framework of a joint practice. Therefore the representatives of the Czech Air Force have also been invited, but their aircraft, pilots, and crew could not participate in the exercise due to various reasons. And even though the military of the Republic of South Africa also uses Gripen fighters, the Hungarians only expected observers from this state due to the great distance, but they could not come either. Croatia on the other hand has sent two military observers to exercise Lion Effort 2009.

Lt.Col. Ugrik added: one of the most important goals of the tactical exercise was so-called cross-service. In other words, the activity when the aircraft of a country is serviced by the land engineering troops of another country before or after the flight. In addition to that, preparing jointly for future tasks was also one of the aims of the exercise. After detailing the fictitious tactical situation, the flight operations director of the exercise said they started the aerial activity from one-on-one aerial combat and they got as far as 4-4 aerial combat. Beyond that, the main task of the joint exercise was to improve self-defence capacity in electronic combat, and to execute air-to-earth strikes.

As we were told the Swedish troops arrived to exercise Lion Effort 2009 with six Jas–39 Gripens. Similarly, the Hungarian Air Force participated with six Gripens, two L–39 Albatroses, and two MiG–29s. The Szolnok corps arrived to Kecskemét with two Mi–24 combat helicopters, and the anti-aircraft missile corps of Győr brought two KUB batteries and a MISTRAL platoon. The air surveillance regiment involved two air traffic control centres – those in Veszprém and Kecskemét – in the exercise.

After the briefing the guests were shown the battle station of the Győr anti-aircraft missile corps and the technical equipments used by them. Captain András Kövér, the commander of the group said: the soldiers of the corps executed so-called target tracking tasks. The KUB batteries performed 46, and the MISTRAL platoon performed 70 imitated launches, and the majority of them did actually ’hit’ the targets in the air. Moreover, the training will not end on 15 October for the ’Arrabona’ troops, for after Lion Effort 2009 they will also participate in exercise ’New Fib’.

The demonstration day of exercise Lion Effort 2009 ended with a press conference, where Colonel Tibor Zsámboki, Deputy Commander, HDF 59th ’Dezső Szentgyörgyi’ Aviation Base told the guests that in the first couple of days of training the Swedish and the Hungarian pilots were flying together and prepared for the execution of planned tasks. The exercise – conducted by nearly 400 soldiers – was an excellent opportunity to gain experiences and practice cooperation for the Hungarian and the Swedish troops alike.

Lieutenant Colonel Anders Segerby, the commander of the Swedish formation participating in the exercise, added to what was said before: they are very satisfied with the work done together in the previous days, and the joint training was an especially good opportunity to improve air-to-air capabilities, in other words, the aerial combat activity. What is more, they also had a chance to fight a MiG–29, which is a great experience for every Swedish pilot.

photo: Veronika Dévényi