Air Policing in Romania – and much more !
From the beginning of September till the end of December 2020, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 433 Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) deployed their CF-188 Hornets to Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase in Romania, the main objective being to perform NATO air policing missions – but there was much more!
This deployment was part of Operation Reassurance. Lieutenant Colonel David McLeod is commander of 433 TFS from Bagotville, Que and was also commander of the Air Task Force, Romania. Explaining the purpose of this deployment he stated, “We were deployed as the RCAF Air Task Force with some 150 personnel and six CF188s for the NATO Enhanced Air Policing Mission. This was divided into two phases, the first part being the deterrent mission, that is the traditional Quick Reaction Alert (QRA), having armed fighters on the ground with alert was launched from MK [Mihail Kogalniceau airbase]. Second phase of the mission focussed on multinational joint training and integration between our forces and locally based forces such as the Romanian Air Force.”
Because of Covid-19, the entire team was quarantined for two weeks and conducted testing in Canada before they even crossed the Atlantic Ocean and also during their stopover in Keflavik, Iceland, when the team was again in quarantine. McLeod explained the challenge of good communication, “Since we were working on strict guidelines owing to Covid-19, the biggest challenge that we faced while conducting these exercises was face-to-face interaction. In order to overcome this hurdle, we switched to electronic means of interaction by using the telephone or video conferencing, both secure and unclassified. We were using our own secure networks to coordinate and organise these events.”
The Romanian Air Force flew their Lancers from MK, an upgraded version of the classic MiG-21 Fishbed. McLeod further explained, “They are looking forward to working with us and soak up as much knowledge and professional development from the interaction as they can. But our
side too, I mean my junior pilots, they are combat ready but some have not been deployed before. And now, we bring them out here and mix them up with real MiG21s and do they get surprised! It’s a small jet with a small profile, especially face on. We can try to simulate MiG-21s with Alpha Jets back home in Canada, but nothing beats the real thing. And my pilots learned that the Lancers have upgraded avionics, and they have very capable pilots. This really benefits both forces.”
The QRA mission is not a continuous mission and the Canadian detachment shared the duty with other forces in the region as well. “We work out our schedule with CAOC at Torrejon (NATO’s Southern Combined Air Operations Centre in Spain). So as per our schedule, some days were focussing on training and some days were on QRA, holding alerts,” McLeod clarified. “We are plugged in on the NATO secure systems so we stay connected to the CRC in Bucharest and the CAOC in Torrejon,” he further stated.
For the QRA, the Hornets carried a mixed weapon load consisting of AIM-9 Sidewinder heat seeking missiles and AIM120 AMRAAM radar guided missiles plus external fuel tailored to the situation. “It is a little different here whereas in Canada, we often fly longer ranges to conduct intercepts owing to the geographical differences. Here it’s a smaller AOR [Area Of Responsibility] so we tailor the load a little more to the area of operation. The F-18 is fully capable of performing day and night operations and all of our crew members were equipped with the ANVIS 9 Night Vision Goggles to perform night operations smoothly,” McLeod stated.
When there was a potential or actual violation of NATO air space, CAOC Torrejon sent a scramble alert to the Romanian NATO Command and Reporting Centre (CRC) with the call sign ‘Chrystal’ in Bucharest. Bucharest transmitted that to operations at MK and the scramble process was initiated. “Usually, we do our mission without any lateral airborne support, we just use native radar and communication coverage that Romania has. If a NATO AWACS is airborne, at the time, they contribute to that picture, but by default they are not controlling the Alpha scramble.”
Formally, the area of operation was the entire Romanian flight information region. However, because of the various aspects of the mission, main focus was on eastern part of the country and especially the Black Sea region. Already at the beginning of the Task Force deployment, there was an amplified level of activities in that region owing to the ongoing large scale Russian exercise KAVKAZ-2020. After a few weeks, this culminated in an actual Alpha Scramble as a Russian jet got very close to Romanian airspace and two Hornets were scrambled. “We identified the aircraft as a Su-27 Flanker and monitored it closely until it left the Romanian flight information region,” McLeod stated.
Apart from the “assurance and reassurance” parts of the mission, it has been a great learning experience for the personnel involved. “It is great to take my pilots out of their comfort zone. We are used to the Canadian and US air traffic systems. In Europe, they have to get used to the difference between general air traffic and operational air traffic. The difference goes all the way down to the accents on radios when they communicate. Any time we go on a multinational operation, we have to integrate with all these countries, with their different accents and capabilities. So the capability to work with all these forces, even if it’s on a small scale such as here with the air policing mission, is a massive learning point for my guys. So this is an excellent preparation for any future multinational operation we are going to be a part of!” McLeod concluded.