T
URKEY IN JUNE, in full flying
kit, is not for the faint-
hearted. Amid sweltering
conditions, the Turkish Air
Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri,
THK) held its always hotly
anticipated ‘Anatolian Eagle’ once
again this summer. While exercises
are commonplace and it’s all about
teamwork — or interoperability, as the
current buzzword goes — events such
as this offer infrequent opportunities to
get up close to some rare metal.
Turkey is an important strategic country
given its position as a link between
Europe and the Middle East, and it has
dramatically increased its training facilities
over the last decades while gradually
modernizing its armed forces to protect
itself from the numerous pockets of
instability in and around its borders.
Leaving aside recent global publicity of
US and Russian concerns about Turkey’s
purchase of S-400 missiles alongside
development of its F-35 program —
Konya is one of the of the few THK basesthat allows media access, located about
150 miles (240km) south of Ankara on the
Anatolian plateau. The resident exercise
dates back to June 2001 and to date
some 14 countries have joined the THK
for ‘Anatolian Eagle’ including Belgium,
France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, the
Netherlands, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the UK
and the US.
‘Anatolian Eagle’ operates in a similar
way to the famous US ‘Red Flag’ exercise,
and essentially features ‘Blue Force’ good
guys against bandit ‘Red Air’ opponents.
The latter were Turkish F-16s dedicated to
the role while ‘real world’ scenarios were
played out on a daily basis.
For the 2019 edition, the scenario was
a ‘Red’ country trying to take control of
an oil port inside the friendly nation, thus
opening up a wide variety of air combat
tactics in a simulated conflict scenario.
Maj Turgay Tümer told reporters
that ‘Anatolian Eagle’ is ‘considered a
laboratory in which needs are determined
and solutions are developed alongThis image: All
Turkish F-4E-
2020s are now
centralized
under 111 Filo at
Eskişehir. This
example carries
an ageing Pave
Spike targeting
pod in the forward
port missile bay.
Giovanni Colla
Inset: THK F-4E-
2020 pilots pose
for a photo ahead
of an ‘Anatolian
Eagle’ mission.
Rich Cooperhttp://www.combataircraft.net // September 2019 39
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