Yesterday morning, transport of the equipment and ground crews began. The personnel in question is being deployed to the Dutch Leeuwarden airbase. Six F-16 C/D Block 52+ jets will then join the personnel staying in the Netherlands.

Frisian Flag exercise takes place annually, and it has a multinational profile. This year, the Polish pilots will be trained together with their British, Norwegian, German, American, Belgian, Finnish, French, Italian and, of course, Dutch colleagues. According to the publicly available information, 69 airframes of a variety of types will be involved in the operation, including the British Tornados, French Mirage 2000 D/N fighters, as well as the German Eurofighters.

Scope of the Frisian Flag Exercise covers COMAO operations, also within a high-intensity conflict scenario. This year’s plan of operations assumes that two sorties per day are going to be flown.

The main goal of the exercise is to get the aviators prepared to cooperate during a variety of conflicts, and within a wide spectrum of threats present in the operating environment. It is very important to speak a single language during such operations. Remaining training goals include: planning the COMAO sorties in a realistic contemporary battlefield environment, in line with the NATO standards; perfecting the tactical skills required for COMAO sorties and debriefing; establishing cooperation between the NATO member states; and carrying out relevant air-refuelling training.