Four Spanish fighter planes warm up their engines to fly around the world in 50 days
It is the first time in the history of Spanish military aeronautics that a formation of combat aircraft is going to take on the challenge of flying over three oceans, crossing four continents and completing a round the globe to participate in very different international tactical air exercises in the Arctic and in several countries of the Indo-Pacific.
This is the challenge facing the "Plus Ultra" Tactical Air Group, made up of four Eurofighter fighters, two A400M turboprop logistical transport aircraft - with equipment, material and spare parts for aircraft maintenance - and another A330 multipurpose strategic transport aircraft. The latter is responsible for bringing 240 airmen back and forth, including refresher pilots, mechanics, armourers, software specialists, medical and health personnel and Air Deployment Support Squadron personnel.
The project is called Pacific Skies and is a demanding initiative that will serve to "demonstrate and prove to us our high training and projection capacity, to quickly and effectively reach any part of the world in defence of our geostrategic interests", affirms Lieutenant General Francisco González-Espresati, head of the Air Combat Command.
The air formation of the Air and Space Army will cover no less than 58,400 kilometres, but it will not do so alone. Under the command of General Pedro Belmonte, the Plus Ultra Group will participate in Pacific Skies in cooperation with similar groups from France and Germany.
Between them, the three countries make up a tri-national fleet which, barring last-minute modifications, totals around 1,800 military personnel and 49 combat, tactical transport, air-to-air refuelling and helicopter aircraft. The majority -28 aircraft- are fighters, of which 12 are Eurofighters -eight German and four Spanish from the 14th Wing-, 12 Tornados -all German- and four French Rafale. Nine are A400M tactical transports: four German, three French and two Spanish from the 31st Wing in Zaragoza.
Combined fighter-transport fleet
The large deployment is completed by eight multi-role strategic transport and refuelling aircraft: four German, three French and one Spanish aircraft from Group 45 located at Torrejón. The German Luftwaffe, to cover its own needs, is embarking four H145M LUH utility helicopters on its transports.
All the machines will be assembled on 26 June at the German air base in Nörvenich, near the city of Cologne, and one after the other will take off the following day in stages to follow a route that should take them to Canada, Alaska, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and India.
It will be a kind of flying technological embassy of the capabilities that the military aeronautical industry of the Old Continent has been able to develop. The aircraft on the aerial carousel are the work of the European industrial corporation Airbus - Eurofighter, A400M, A330, H145M LUH and partly the Tornado - or the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation, such as the Rafale fighter.
Airbus in Spain and Germany, as well as Dassault in France, are partners in the development of the future European air combat system NGWS/FCAS, a joint programme in which all three air forces are involved. The corollary of Pacific Skies is therefore "to contribute to opening up new markets for the European aeronautical industry, whose managers will attend specific events organised in certain countries," stresses General Espresati.
Colonel Rafael Maurín, head of the Training and Evaluation Section of the Combat Command and in charge of the Pacific Skies project in Spain, specifies the stages of the Spanish-French-German air deployment: "The first stop is Canada, then we jump to Alaska" and land at the Elmendorf-Richardson base, where each of the air formations will take part in Arctic Defender from 8 to 17 July. "This is a multinational exercise with US participation focused on training NATO operational procedures".
A major logistical projection challenge
Once the North Pole operation is over, the tri-national fleet will head for Japan, a stopover before arriving in Australia, over whose main air bases it will take part in the Pitch Black exercise, which will run from 22 July to 4 August. In the country of the kangaroos, on 20 July, the commanding general of the Plus Ultra Group, the fighter pilots and ground personnel of the 14th Wing will be replaced by their counterparts from the 11th Wing in Albacete, whose chief colonel is Colonel Cesar Pérez Moriano.
In addition to the host nation's aircraft and fighters from Germany, France and Spain, which is participating for the first time, Pitch Black involves around 100 fighter, transport, air-to-air refuelling, reconnaissance, intelligence and early warning aircraft from almost 20 nations.
They come from Canada, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In total there will be nearly 4,500 airmen and military technicians, including qualified personnel from Brunei and Fiji.
After the intense Australian operation, the next stop is Malaysia, before arriving at Sulur air base in India to take part in the Tarang Shakti exercise, organised by the Indian Air Force and scheduled for 7-13 August. The country's pilots will fly Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30MKI Flanker fighters, which the Spanish pilots are not familiar with. Pacific Skies will officially conclude on 13 August, but the Spanish aircraft will not be back at the Morón air base (Seville) until 16 August, after a stopover in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.
The Agrupación Aérea Táctica has been christened "Plus Ultra" to honour the feat of the seaplane of the same name and its military crew who on 22 January 1926 took off from Palos de la Frontera, crossed the Atlantic at the risk of their lives and reached Buenos Aires on 10 February after covering 10,270 kilometres. Now it is a question of projecting an air force and demonstrating that airmen and machines are capable of maintaining a sustained logistical effort over many thousands of kilometres.