MILITARY KONINKLIJKE LUCHTMACHT F-16
First intercept
Four Dutch F-16AMs arrived in Lithuania in
early January to take over the mission from
the French Armée de l’Air that had maintained
the BAP detachment with four Mirage 2000-5s
since late August 2016. Within a couple of
days, the Dutch were fully operational and
said goodbye to the French. The detachment
made its first real intercept on January 26. The
bogeys were a Russian Antonov An-26 Curl
and a Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer flying north from
Kaliningrad in international airspace close to
the Baltic States. Flight plans had been filed but
the aircrafts’ transponders were not registering
and the pilots were not in contact with air traffic
control. After that busy start, however, real
scrambles, known as alpha scrambles, did not
occur that often. The detachment expected
that such scrambles would increase as the
year moved on and the weather improved. The
spring and summer months see more exercises
conducted by the Russians in the Baltic and
over Kaliningrad. BAP pilots are eager to do
alpha scrambles. It breaks the monotony of
daily life on base, and they get to see aircraft
they usually don’t see at home. Major Martin,Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLU) detachment
commander (Detco) at Šiauliai, said: “Every
pilot wants to do an alpha scramble, but we
have zero influence on that. If we do such a
scramble, the pilots move to their aircraft in a
slightly more excited mood.” After returning,
they enter the operations building in what Martin
euphemistically describes as ‘a professionally
enthusiastic state’ and everybody wants to
know everything about the intercept. The
F-16AMs are equipped with the new Sniper
targeting pod, which is used to make images
of the intercepted aircraft, although pilots also
have a conventional camera with them. The
KLU would not give the actual number of alpha
scrambles it had executed. According to Šiauliai
base commander Colonel Marius Matulaitis,
the number of these scrambles has increased
since the beginning of 2014: “More or less every
detachment has the same number of scrambles
per rotation.” Although the Baltic States border
Russia in the east, the intercepts only concern
military and civilian traffic over the Baltic Sea.
A senior Dutch pilot said: “We, as well as the
Russians, stay away from that border to avoid
building up tension.”Tango scrambles
No alpha scrambles does not mean no flying.
The detachments perform training scrambles
on a daily base. The Dutch regularly launch
so-called Tango scrambles against the Aero
Vodochody L-39s of the Lietuvos karinės oro
pajėgos (LK KOP or Lithuanian Air Force)
which are also based at Šiauliai. Alternatively,
they fly against the Siły Powietrzne
Rzeczpospolita Polska (Air Force of the
Republic of Poland). They also practise 1 v 1 or
air-to ground exercises, although the training
value is limited. Air combat manoeuvres with
the Poles take place just over the Polish
border. Major Martin says: “We train against
different numbers of opponents, sometimes up
to five aircraft. However, because we fly with
live weapons we are limited in what we can
do, because of peace-time safety restrictions.”
The Šiauliai-det does not train with the Ämari-
det: “We can only do a training scramble if
the Ämari-det is not in the air in that period
and vice versa. We are never simultaneously
airborne for training.” Depending on the
circumstances, other NATO countries around
the Baltic can also activate their QRAs.F-16AM J-866 armed
with three live AIM-120
AMRAAM and one AIM-9L
air-to-air missiles; a stand-
ard weapon payload for the
BAP mission.