Hot Blade 2021

The Hot Blade 2021 (HB2021) is the 15th helicopter exercise organised under the umbrella of the European Defence Agency’s Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP) and its 5th edition was conducted by the Portuguese Air Force Air Command. This exercise was held between 16 to 30 June 2021.

The participating forces were deployed at Air Base No. 11, Beja and the missions were planned for the central and south of Portugal, with the concern of reducing their impact on the environment and population.

Participats flew diverse day and night COMAO ( Composite Air Operations) missions such as Air Assault, Special Operations Aviation ( e. g. fast rope techniques; insertion/extraction and airto-surface firing), Combat Service Support, Close Air Support, Convoy/ helicopter escorts, Reconnaissance and Surveillance, Combat Search and Rescue, Personnel Recovery and Medical Evacuation and Casualty Evacuation.

The HB2021 allowed aircrews to practice operations in a variety of environments by reproducing challenging conditions that participating forces could encounter in real theaters of operation.

The HB2021 exercise was consisted of one daily common COMAO flight in afternoon or in the evening. Before or after these common flights, the participating countries flew their own local missions in the various target areas over Portugal.

The exercise also provided opportunities to practice multinational and national formation and training with the Special Operations Forces ( SOF) and units ( infiltration and exfiltration). These missions enhanced crews’ skills in using the HEP Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and COMAO planning procedures in the conduct of flight planning and operations.

Background

The Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP) is part of EDA’s wider helicopter portfolio and aimed at providing Member States with

a joint European framework to develop, consolidate and share best practices to meet the current and future challenges of flying helicopters in a modern operational environment. Other components of this portfolio are the Helicopter Tactics Course (HTC) programme, the Helicopter Tactics Instructor Course ( HTIC) programme and the future Multinational Helicopter Training Centre (MHTC).

Dutch helicopter detachment

Capt. “SIMBA”, a CH-47 Pilot Flight Commander (298 squadron), was given the role of ‘Chief Air Operations’ during the exercise. The aims and expectations of this exercise were Safe execution of multinational collaboration during Composite Air Operations ( COMAO) and successfully complete the Qualification Training ( QT) and Degraded Visual Environment ( DVE) landings for the Dutch Cougar and Chinook crews. The most special demand for this exercise was the fact that they required hot-refueling on Beja AB and on FOB Tancos. Therefore, extra Portuguese and Dutch POL and fire rescue support were deployed on these bases. The Dutch S3 Air detachment consisted of approximately 66 participants and of them, there were 30 pilots, 25 loadmasters and 11 mission support persons. Depending on the lead, tasks were given to the pilots during the COMAO. In total, the Dutch helicopters participated 46 times with Cougars and Chinooks in the COMAO and flew 45 DVE training missions. Capt. “SIMBA” described the support of the Portuguese Air force as incredible.