‘We practice scenarios that could challenge all of us’
As the Middle East tracks Iranian and Turkish efforts to expand their impact in the region, the IAF completed a joint exercise with foreign air forces in Greece.
The exercise, “Iniochos,” was a two-week drill that included practicing various scenarios.
“We maintained our cooperation with foreign countries and practiced different scenarios that could be a common challenge to us,” Capt. O., an F15i pilot, told The Jerusalem Post.
“Maintaining this cooperation was a major goal for us. It started by drinking coffee together and continued with flying together and reviewing our performances afterward. It has great strategic importance,” he said.
The IAF participated in the exercise with the “Ra’am” (F15i) aircraft from the 69th Squadron, the “Sufa” (F16i) from the 107th Squadron, the “Re’em” from the 120th Squadron, and the “Nahshon” (G-550) from the 122nd Squadron.
“The joint missions were carried out in English, and according to the common phrases used by NATO forces,” O. said.
“We also had to fly in areas we don’t know, and terrains we don’t have in Israel, such as areas with high mountains,” he added.
This benefited the IAF. Training in a foreign language and in an unknown area meant conditions had to be learned quickly.
“We have here tools that allow us to practice fighting against enemies that we don’t have back home, so it allowed us to have a high-quality exercise,” O. said.
O. said that many countries participated in
the drill, but only Greece, Israel, Spain, the US and the UAE deployed jet fighters.
Asked how it feels to train with the Emirates, less than a year after a peace accord was signed by the two countries, O. said: “We feel the closeness and the warmness. However, we don’t have a specific exercise with them. We would like to do it someday in the future, but for now we see them as [just] one of the countries in the exercise here.”
Though the exercise started last week, Israel joined it only on Sunday, due to Remembrance Day and Independence Day last week.
O. said that “the Greeks invested a lot in this drill, and we felt that they looked forward to our arrival in the second week of it. We have strong and warm relations with them, and we are treated well.
“I feel that our pilots gain a lot from this exercise,” he said.