AIR International – June 2018

NATO TACTICAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME AT 40 MILITARY

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Multinational Electronic Warfare Tactics

Facility Polygone. It was charged with

replicating anti-aircraft artillery and air-to-

surface missiles emplacements, providing

jamming and other threat mechanisms

the pilots needed to face to undertake

their assigned missions. There was also

participation from other aircraft supporting

the exercise, such as three helicopters that

took part in two scheduled CSAR missions.

A Learjet from GFD GmbH undertook radar

and communication jamming missions, a

maritime patrol aircraft from the Ejército

del Aire and a F100-Class frigate from the

Spanish Armada supported naval operations.

A Royal Air Force Sentry AEW1 participated

during the fi rst part of the course and an

Aeronautica Militare Gulfstream G550

Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW)

covered the second half.

Objectives

The fundamental objective of the TLP is

to provide the participants with a series of

experiences that will help them with their

ability to organise and lead multinational

missions with large numbers of participating

aircraft. To exercise these skills for FC 201 8-

01, the TLP instructors scheduled 15 fl ying

missions of di erent types and complexity

levels, with increasing threat levels while

taking into account the level of ability

demonstrated by the course participants. In

this way, the pilots who graduate as mission

commander have been exposed to levels of

stress and pressure equal to real missions.

Furthermore, this stress is increased by having

to undertake mission planning in a much-

reduced timeframe than is normal.

In order to achieve quality training for the

pilots, there needs to be a credible threat at

all times to provide a constant challenge to

the aircrews. To support this, the TLP has an

operations room that receives all data from

a mission in real time, including the position

of the aircraft at all times, thanks to GPS

systems carried by each pilot. In this way, the

instructors can activate the appropriate threats

as the Blue packages pass by. The pilots must

then react appropriately to the given threat.

Colonel Luis Villar, TLP Commander, said:

“If the pilots are less advanced, the level of

pressure is lowered; if they are able to deal

with situations with ease, the level of di culty

is raised. The pilot that is fl ying the mission

always needs to have a challenge. They must

constantly be fi ghting against some threat.

We can complicate their mission as much as

we want within the limits of their abilities, in

such a way that at the end of the mission they

will have encountered several di erent critical

Training over La Mancha