Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1467328
air policing effort. During the deployment, the aircraft demonstrated a rare external stores configuration, with six AIM-120C AMRAAM missiles. Fetesti also hosts two F-35A jets from the aforesaid 34th FS. Bulgaria is another country that hosts numerous allied air assets. The Graf Ignatievo airbase hosts four Spanish Eurofighters. Soon, the Spanish Air Force is going to begin their Baltic Air Policing rotation. Ala15 squadron from Saragossa would take the lead. The Bulgarian base is also a temporary home for two dutch F-35As and two RNLAF F-16s. The Flank is sealed off by the British Typhoons operating out of RAF Akrotiri, and Carrier Strike Groups (US Navy CVN-75 USS Harry Truman, with Super Hornets, Growlers, and Hawkeyes, and French Charles de Gaulle Carrier, with Rafales M and Hawkeyes). To ensure CSAR capabilities are available, elements of the 56th and 57th SAR squadrons from Aviano, with HH-60G Pave Hawks have been deployed to Romania. The presence of NATO aircraft flying from their bases is equally impressive in the east. Long before the war, the USAF RC-135W were conducting recce sorties almost daily, flying in the Polish Airspace (38th Reconnaissance Squadron, 55th Reconnaissance Wing, tail code letters OF), along with their British counterparts (51st RAF Squadron). The aircraft above were flying out of RAF Mildenhall and RAF Waddington. Recently we could have observed E-8C activity (116th Air Control Wing from the Robbins AFB, GA tail code). NATO E-3 Sentry (with the Poles, among the crewmembers) is monitoring the airspace out of its home base in Geilenkirchen. Tankers are the key when it comes to CAP (Combat Air Patrol) sorties. Ever since the conflict began, several allied tanker assets are operating non-stop in the airspaces of the frontline states. Some of the tankers use new operational areas, some use the „ordinary ones" that have been known for years. Thanks to the effort of the US KC-135Rs (100th Air Refuelling Wing from Mildenhall), KC-10s (several USA units flying out of RAF Mildenhall), MMF KC-30M (joint Dutch-Belgian- Luxembourgian-German-Norwegian- Czech unit), British Voyagers (10th and 101st RAF Squadrons from Brize Norton), and French A330 MRTTs (31st Squadron from BA120 Istres), A400M (Wunstorf Lufttransportgeschwader 62), AVIATION