A 117 Sqn F-16C ‘Barak’ taxies for departure while a Greek F-16C already gets airborne to act as Red Air
Members of the air forces of Greece, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Cyprus joined the annual Iniochos exercise at Andravida airbase in Greece, from 12 to 23 March 2018.
Home based 338 MDV supported the exercise with four aging F-4Es
Increasing Level of Realism
Given the high (readiness) level of Hellenic Air Force (HAF) personnel owed to the everlasting tensions with neighbouring country Turkey for years, the HAF has been looking for a way to verify their ability to employ their weapon systems in a highdensity environment. Established in the late 80s as a domestic small-scale air exercise, the setup of Iniochos was changed in late 2013, based on experiences that HAF pilots had gathered during exercises such as Red Flag in the USA and the Tactical Leadership Programme (TLP) in Europe. Iniochos was then transformed into a medium scale INVITEX (Invite Exercise), meaning that other interested foreign nations could participate by invitation. Another change was the adoption of the so-called single base concept meaning the execution of operations from one single air base. As Colonel Konstantin Zolotas, deputy commander of the Air Tactics Centre (ATC, locally known as Kentro Aeroporikis Taktikis or KEAT), explained, “By implementing these changes, it contributes to better synergy effects, a more realistic simulation of real combat operations and the opportunity of a better analysis of the results by debriefing together. It improves the learning curve significantly and therefore provides a higher efficiency for all participants involved.”
USAF F-15E touches down at Andravida after a morning COMAO
The first-and main-goal during the initial editions of Iniochos was to create a realistic environment for proper training of Hellenic Air Force fighter squadrons. This level of realism has increased over time, particularly when foreign participants started to contribute with their own training and combat experiences. The training scenarios are now executed in a challenging and demanding high-threat environment for the participating nations, which was expanded with the inclusion of simultaneous Hellenic Navy and Army exercises like Astrapi.
Ambitions
ATC plans to make Iniochos the most important medium scale air-exercise for Europe and the Middle East. To reach this goal, a fully simulated combat environment is being provided to all participants, together with the opportunity of using different kinds of target ranges (over land and over sea) for perfectly realistic training conditions. According to US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, Greece is well underway in reaching this goal, “Iniochos has become an important multinational exercise with broad participation from across Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, which reflects the ambition of Greece as a builder of bridges, as a pillar of regional stability,” he stated.
Israeli F-16C of 117 Sqn of Ramat David air base takes off spectacularly during an afternoon mission
Iniochos 2018
In previous years, the exercise was scheduled during April, but the start of other activities at Andravida forced the planners to reschedule to an earlier date; as a result, the weather conditions were less than ideal as they would normally be in April, resulting in some cancelled missions due to adverse weather.
A Greek F-16C of 347 Mira comes in to land after the morning COMAO
Besides all HAF combat squadrons, six foreign countries were present during Iniochos 2018. The United Arab Emirates returned to Iniochos for the second year in a row. Last year they brought their F-16E Desert Falcons equipped with the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-80 AESA radar. According to unconfirmed statements, one of the main reasons behind the decision of the Hellenic Air Force to invite them was, besides strengthening of bilateral relations, the desire to have a closer look at the AESA radar, having in mind the forthcoming introduction of the F-35A Lightning II in the Turkish Air Force. This year, however, the UAE AF brought six less advanced Mirage 2000-9s of 71 squadron based at Al-Dhafra Air Base.
F-16D of 337 Mira taxies at Andravida with the Skorta mountains in the background
Unlike previous years, the Israeli Air Force was only present during a small portion of the exercise in the second week, with four F-16Cs from 117 squadron which is based at Ramat David airbase. Last year, the fact that the Israeli and UAE Air Forces trained together during Iniochos, received much media attention and this might have influenced the decision of the Israeli leadership to lower their presence in 2018.
Highlights of
this year’s exercise were Mirage 2000-9s of the UAE AF