Aviation Photography: Anatolian Eagle 2014/2 The best days this year.

Mission of AE

The mission of Anatolian Eagle is to provide a most realistic operational training for fighter pilots, and to give them the chance to survive in a real conflict.

Also its important to give pilots a opportunity to execute there tactics in large force composistions, in a way to learn from the mistakes. Therefore AE provides a forum to exchange ideas and lesson learned, in order to prevent inexperienced pilots from loosing in early stages of war.

CGI controllers are training to keep up there Combat Ready Status during the various missions

Aim

AE wants to increase the operational training level of the pilots and air defense personal in a simulated most realistic operational enviroment. By doing that in a exercise and develop joined and combined operational procedures. Therefore decreasing the attritions to a minimum level and to increase mission effectiveness to a maximum level in real operation environments.

Vison of AE

To be one of the most prestigious Tactical Training Center in the world.

Air space

AE has a area to its use which is 1/7 part of turkey (roughly 400km by 300km) to deploy 50 to 60 aircraft during a mission. In this area its is forbidden for commercial flights to fly while a AE mission is commencing.

Planning and execution phase

Planning for ae starts roughly 8 months before the exercise starts

A mission will always start with a briefing in the morning that will take place at 07;30 hours

During that all pilots will get the latest information for that mornings mission.

So that they will know what type of mission that day will be made and of course what the weather will be and other regulations.

Then around 09:30 there will be a mass take off from nearly 50 aircraft so they can execute there mission. Landings are usually 11:30 and then the pilots head for the debriefing.

During the 2 weeks of the exercise almost daily there are 2 missions flown by nearly 50 aircraft.

Elements of AE training

White HQ is responsible for preparation of training scenario and for determining the level of training. White HQ shall be monitoring and commanding the exercise and will be evaluating and analyzing the training

Red Force

Red force is a training aid for the blue fighters to give them a realistic adversary as the can expect in a real conflict. Red forces this year was done by Turkish and Jordanian F-16`s, too give the blue forces a real hard day at work.

Blue force

The blue forces consist of National Squadrons and international Squadrons, and have there own AAR tanker capability. Also they have the advantage to use NATO AWACS and Turkish Air Force Peace Eagle.

Threat Systems

AE uses ground system to give a much higher form a real war like training.

With systems like the Hawk, Sa-6, and Sky guard the participants will have another threat to evade.

ACMI

AE uses Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation which can give a clear view of al participants in real time so that for example position, speed, altitude and position to other fighters can be seen in the command center.

Mission types

AE gives the pilots a variety of mission types to execute during the 2 weeks of the exercises.

A pilot can be given the mission to do air to ground on one day and on the next mission he can be doing slow mover protection.

Below a list of mission types

CAP, Sweep, Escort, Air to Ground, Air to Air, SEAD/DEAD, HVAA Protection, Slow Mover Protection,

Recce, TAL/TAD, CAS, Convoy Protection, TST, DT, ASUW, CSAR.

As you can see a lot of mission types can be done during a AE exercise, so pilots can learn the the fullest for every future conflict.

AE Participants

Over the years AE has had participants from 13 countries taking part in the exercise.

Many NATO country's participated but also country`s from the middle east have had there share.

During a period of 36 AE exercises there have been 2376 aircraft, 28250 soldiers and 20258 missions have been flown. For AE 2014/2 there where a total number of 78 aircraft deployed from Jordan, Qatar (First time participant), Spain, United Kingdom and NATO.

Proving that Anatolian Eagle is a highly respected exercise trough out the world.

Personal note

What`s it like to be back, i asked myself during the bus ride to the briefing room.

A question that was already taking out of my mind during the briefing, which made it clear that this was going to be the highlight of the year. For 3 days we had the opportunity to photograph the planes in a way that we could only dream of. With the excellent Turkish Air Force personnel who gave us the aces to a military installation we can only be thankful.

We attended 3 missions during Anatolian Eagle 2014/2, where the planes could be taken from different positions on the airfield. To my surprise we also visited the Eagle ramps where al participants could be photographed.

One of the highlights was that the Turkish Air Force had a surprise for us in the form a demonstration by the Turkish Stars, which was awesome to see.

Also the addition to attend the departure day was a great opportunity, with a first for us to see the new Turkish Air Force transport aircraft A-400M was another surprise.

All good things come to a end, we can only say Thank you, Thank You ,Thank You.

Personal thank you by Remco Broersma

Thanks to all of the people in the Turkish Air Force who made this possible, I made a lot of great pictures. Hopefully we can come again in the future. Thank You.

Personal thank you by Henk Broersma

This was my first time attending Anatolian Eagle, and I had the time of my life taking many good shots and talking to the great Turkish Air Force personnel. Hope to see you again and thank you very much for these days, Thank You