Air Defense Control Officers Have Done Well

1st Lt. István Ivanicskó (leftward on our first photo) and 1st Lt. Balázs Börcsök were working together with their Swedish, Czech and South African colleagues at an air base in the town of Luleǻ, some 100 kilometers from the Artic Circle.

“The tasks we executed here have been more extensive and complex than those of the exercises in Hungary. This was partly because we were tasked with controlling many more aircraft than usual in an airspace that was larger than usual. We haven’t seen so many aircraft “fighting" above Hungary, but that would be inconceivable anyway, due to the physical features of the airspace of our country" – 1st Lt. István Ivanicskó told us.

“Of course, we had earlier trained for this kind of activity, both in theory and practice, so we were able to work smoothly in several phases of the exercise. In some instances, however, the control of air combat posed us with a serious challenge, but we have done a good job and gained a lot of experience. The Swedish experts were there all along to help our work" – he added.

The manning level of the Swedish air defense controllers is much higher than that of the HDF ACCC and their working schedule is somewhat different too. Already during the planning phase of Exercise Lion Effort 2012, they offered the two Hungarian experts the opportunity to work together with their Czech and South African colleagues.