Exercise Fire Blade 2017 Starts with 500 Participants

Szöveg: Péter Snoj | 2017. május 4. 9:00

On Monday, 1 May, the multinational Exercise Fire Blade 2017 kicked off with altogether15 aircraft and 500 personnel. The helicopter exercise – which is aimed at practicing various rotary-wing capabilities –, is hosted by the HDF Pápa Air Base.

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On Monday morning, Exercise Fire Blade 2017 started with an opening ceremony. The international test of capabilities – conducted by the European Defence Agency (EDA) already for the 11th time under the umbrella of its Helicopter Exercise Programme – involves, in addition to German, Austrian, Slovenian and Belgian comrades, the Hungarian Defence Forces too, not only as participants, because for the first time, Hungary is hosting the various training events.

Each helicopter exercise has a special training subject. This year, the tasks will focus on air-to-ground live firing operations. As the organizers of the exercise told us, this is part of the reason why Hungary has been chosen as a host country, as the favorable location, diversity and opportunities of Hungarian ranges fully meet the requirements of Fire Blade 2017. On the days between 1 and 11 May, it is expected that up to 10-12 helicopters will take off at the same time on several occasions. They will execute their tasks mainly in the vicinity of Pápa, Újdörögd and Hajmáskér.

During the eight years of the Helicopter Exercise Programme, close to 230 helicopters and 1,600 aircrew members from 19 member states have deployed to the EDA exercises which were held in France, Spain, Portugal, Finland and Belgium.