Canadian fighter pilots to practise highway landings on NATO exercise

A Hercules aircraft refuels two CF-18 Hornet jets on May 26, 2015. (Handout)

Canadian fighter pilots are arriving in Europe ahead of six weeks of multinational war games in the United Kingdom and Estonia, where they will practise landing CF-18 jets on rural highways as part of a simulated large-scale combat scenario.

A team of eight CF-18 Hornets from Canadian Forces Base Bagotville, Que., will participate in the drills alongside a Hercules search-and-rescue plane, a Polaris refueller and about 160 Royal Canadian Air Force personnel.

Maj. Sebastien Tremblay-Verreault, deputy commander of 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bagotville, says the largest of the exercises will involve more than 30 aircraft from allied nations simultaneously airborne off England’s east coast.

“We’re talking complex air battle simulation,” Tremblay-Verreault said in an interview Friday from RAF Waddington, a major air base north of London. “With the sheer number of aircraft that are involved, that’s something we cannot really replicate by ourselves at home.”

In a statement Thursday, the Department of National Defence says Canada’s participation in the U.K.’s Exercise Cobra Warrior is an opportunity to train air force personnel in “high-intensity tactical air warfare operations” alongside NATO allies.

The biannual exercise draws together NATO-member and partner countries for a range of tactical training missions over three weeks of real-world combat scenarios.

CF-18 Hornets on highways

The exercise is scheduled from mid-September until early October, after which about 80 of the RCAF members will travel to Estonia for Exercise Tarassis, a major combat-readiness exercise involving air, land and naval forces from across Europe.

“We’re going to exercise a concept that is called ‘agile combat employment.’ Basically, we’re deploying to unfamiliar aerodromes and unfamiliar operating conditions,” Tremblay-Verreault said.

A key focus of the exercise will be training Canadian pilots on highway landings and takeoffs, which are useful for rapid wartime deployment to areas where regular airstrips are either destroyed or non-existent.

“It’s to simulate, like in wartime, what do you do if your airbase gets attacked? Well, you spread your forces wherever you can,” Tremblay-Verreault said. “From my experience in the fighter force, we’ve never done that before.”

Canada’s participation in both exercises is part of Operation Reassurance, the Canadian Armed Forces’ longstanding contribution to NATO security in Europe.

“The strategic partnerships developed during Exercises Cobra Warrior and Tarassis will enable the development of the RCAF’s future capabilities and operational agility,” Maj.-Gen. Chris McKenna, commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, said in a statement Thursday.

“In strengthening ties with our NATO allies, set to the backdrop of an intense and demanding training environment, the RCAF stands to gain a great deal in terms of our ability to be prepared for, and help solve, the challenges facing the Canadian Armed Forces into the coming decade.”