lying over the Baltics isn’t that
much different to flying over
Denmark,” said Lt Col ‘STI’, a
Flyvevåbnet (Royal Danish Air Force, RDAF)
Fighting Falcon pilot and commander of
Eskadrille 730 (Fighter Squadron 730).
He was talking to AFM about the differences
between performing the quick reaction alert
(QRA) mission over Denmark and the Baltic Air
Policing (BAP) assignment over the Baltics. “It
is a bit closer to Russia,” he continued, “but
we often fly over the Baltic Sea when flying
east of the Danish island of Bornholm, so we
are used to flying near Russian airspace.”
On March 29, 2004, the three Baltic countries
of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became
members of the NATO alliance, along with
four former Warsaw Pact countries: Bulgaria,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Overnight,
NATO gained a long new frontier with
Russia. Of the seven countries, the three
Baltic nations were unable to police their own
airspace, being equipped mainly with older
Soviet-era transport and training aircraft.
To help the three Baltic States, and to protect
NATO’s new eastern border, NATO established
the BAP mission on March 30 of the same
year, with member countries deploying air
assets to the region on a rotational basis.
This was initially centred upon Šiauliai air
base, some 135 miles (217km)
northwest of the Lithuanian
capital, Vilnius. The purpose of the
mission was to provide QRA over the Baltics,
and to provide a deterrent to Russia.
The Belgian Air Component was the
first to send BAP fighters to Šiauliai, its
four F-16s arriving on March 30. These
were followed on July 1 by the first
RDAF deployment to the same base.
NATO established the NATO Integrated Air
and Missile Defence System (NATINAMDS)
in order to monitor the airspace over alliance
territory. This is one of the cornerstones
of the alliance and provides 24/7 coverage
of the airspace of all member nations.
NATINAMDS is controlled from İzmir inTurkey and Ramstein in Germany, with the
Alps forming a natural boundary between the
two headquarters’ areas of responsibility.
As a response to the Crimean
crisis in early 2014, NATO
decided to establish a second
air base in the Baltics as part of
an enlarged BAP mission. In late April
2014 a detachment of four
RDAF F-16s became the first to
deploy to Ämari air base near Tallinn
in Estonia. Since then, two NATO members
have flown the BAP mission simultaneously
from Šiauliai and Ämari air bases. The lead
nation flies out of the Lithuanian base, while the
nation flying out of Ämari acts as the support.
Lt Col ‘STI’, the commander of the latest
RDAF detachment at Šiauliai, spoke to AFM
about the significance of NATO and the BAP
mission to the Baltic countries: “NATO and
the BAP mission is very important to the three
Baltic nations. Although they spend 2% of their
GDP on defence, their air forces are not given a
high priority. With no current fighter capability- a situation not likely to change any time soon
- the nations will be relying on NATO
for many years to come.”
lying over the Baltics isn’t that
much different to flying overTurkey and Ramstein in Germany, with the
Alps forming a natural boundary between theDanish dynamite
F
“
Right: For the Danish ‘Viper’
drivers, operating over the
Baltics isn’t much different
to fl ying over Denmark.
Frontline RDAF fi ghter pilots
are familiar with fl ying in
proximity to Russian airspace.
Left: An F-16 pilot completes
fi nal preparations for take-off
for another training scramble.
All photos Søren Augustesen76 // JULY 2018 #364 http://www.airforcesmonthly.comRDAF Baltic Air Policing