European Air Group

VOLCANEX 2012 – Up and Running

Kees — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:22:05 +0000

It is half term – not only at school but also for the preparation of the EAG’s major external event of 2012 – Exercise VOLCANEX 2012 which is the EAG’s most complex exercise so far. Not only that there are more than 1400 soldiers and airmen involved and all of the functional areas of the EAG are included but also because it is a combined exercise with the French AIREX (the largest exercise in France this year) and BAPEX. Furthermore, there are several other smaller events and exercises included adding to the complexity and challenge of the planning process.

The IPC, MPC and an initial site survey are already complete and during the last week of April the first of 3 planned weeks of MEL/MIL writing took place in Paris. France is doing everything to support these exercises and to coordinate everything so that the VOLCANEX 2012 will provide the maximum value to the participating units.

All the basic component parts of the exercise have been settled. A general base layout was agreed during the site survey of Vouzier airbase. All areas face their own specific challenges. For Force Protection it is critical that the base is not completely fenced so that additional surveillance systems might be used. For MEDEVAC it is critical to have all the supporting assets at the right time at the right place. CATO and BFI have to fight against time to be ready when the operational use of this bare base commences.

Vouzier is located in the eastern part of France and is a bare base with no current operational flying activity. BAPEX’s intend is it to bring it up to the standard necessary as a DOB capable of supporting around 1400 personnel. VOLCANEX will concentrate on the running of the DOB once the initial setup has been completed, but only in the areas of CIS, Force Protection, CATO, BFI and MEDEVAC. AIREX will be a flying exercise that includes units and assets from every area of the French airforce along with assets and personnel from several additional nations.

All EAG member nations will be involved in the Force Protection area, and additionally units from Norway and Sweden will take part in what is becoming an enduring tradition. All the participating nations have confirmed at the MPC that they will contribute in the exercise with a variety of different capabilities. The total number of participants for Force Protection alone is over 400 which is even more remarkable as it was agreed not to use Engineers as it was originally planned.

The greatest challenge is now to create combined and realistic exercise play for all these exercises. More than 50 officers from all the EAG nations met at the first MEL/MIL conference to start this process. After introduction of the special software used for this task, several sub syndicates started to develop interesting and challenging play. Quite a lot was already achieved during this week but there remains a lot of work to be done during the forthcoming 2 weeks of MEL/MIL writing. The EAG will be responsible for the task development in the areas of Force Protection and MEDIVAC during the MEL/MIL process.

There is less than 6 months left till the exercise starts, and there are still a considerable number of things to do such as the FCC and finalising of the master MEL/MIL. However, it is only half-term and we have already made significant progress with development of the exercise plan. With the combined effort of the French project officers and the excellent support from all the nations sending specialists to all the events, VOLCANEX 2012 will be is sure to provide a significant training and developmental opportunity for our personnel. The foundations have been laid made and the first half of the preparation is complete – let us now start the second half of the process with the goal of ensuring a successful exercise in October.

AVMED Project publication

padd — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:34:48 +0000

An article regarding the AVMED project has been published by Defence IQ

EAG YEARBOOK 2011

padd — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:23:57 +0000

The EAG Yearbook 2011 is now available online :

http://www.euroairgroup.org/ex-sec/publications/eag-yearbooks/

CJPRSC 2012 REGISTRATION FORM

padd — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:30:19 +0000

The CJPRSC 2012 Registration Form is now available here.

Please register online or per e-mail by 07-Sep-12

DEU CIS Equipment Summary

Kees — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:45:26 +0000

Today, 20 April 2012, the DEU CIS Equipment summary is issued. The document is password protected and you can find it when you click on the CIS button; subsection Projects. It is one of four national CIS Equipment Summaries that are currently available; the other three are BEL, ESP and FRA.

New Deputy Director EAG

Kees — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:15:58 +0000

On Tuesday 17th April Brigadier General D. Miguel Angel Villaroya Vilalta (SPAF) took over the position of Deputy Ditrector EAG from Brigadier General Patrice Laurent (BAF). This happened during a short and intimate hand-over ceremony at the EAG premises in High Wycombe. After both generals put their signatures on the official hand-over documents they both delivered a speech and gifts were exchanged. The ceremony ended with a buffet lunch during which EAG personnel could informally meet the new DD and say goodbye to the former DD. Before BG Villaroya took the position of DD EAG he was Chief Of The Air Staff General Secretary at the Spanish Air Staff in Madrid. BG Laurent currently holds the position of Deputy Chief of Staff Support at the NATO HQ Air Command in Ramstein (DEU).

DD handover 17 April 2012

New CIS Documents posted

Kees — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:43:37 +0000

The CIS section has released two new documents to the website. The documents are : Minutes from the CIS meeting held in Cologne (DEU) on 8-9 March 2012 and the FRA Equipment summary. Both documents are password protected and you can find them when you click on the CIS button; subsection Meeting Reports or subsection Projects.

EAG Workshop PR Centre of Excellence

Kees — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:47:15 +0000

Personnel Recovery (PR) operations will be an important factor in current and future operations, be it NATO or EU led. Currently, national PR initiatives in Europe are extremely varied and not concerted. This leads to a lack of accountability or forcing function to ensure all steps are taken before an isolating event occurs…thus PR is NOT institutionalized as a mission area requiring focus and collaboration long before the execution phase in itself.

In order to overcome this problem, the former DEAG, LtGen Kreuzinger-Janik, tasked the EAG to study the feasibility of the establishment of a PR Centre of Excellence in Europe. As an initiating step the EAG invited international Subject Matter Experts to a Workshop, held in High Wycombe from 13 to 15 March 2012, to discuss this task and to base it on a wide knowledge base.

24 international delegates followed this invitation and over 3 days the discussions provided valuable ideas and visions. The requirement for this CoE was uniformly accepted and options about its tasks and establishment were analysed and prioritised.

The EAG JPR staff will now collate the information gathered during the workshop and draft a recommendation for the Steering Group meeting this summer. Thereafter, the JPR area expects to continue to progress in this initiative with more detailed ‘Direction and Guidance’.

Final signature for 2nd IGA amendment

Kees — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:55:57 +0000

Signature by French ambassador, Bernard Emie, at French Embassy on 1 March 2012

Signatures by BEL, ESP, GBR and NLD at Dutch Embassy 12 Dec 2011

On Thursday 1 March Mr Bernard Emie, the French Ambassador in UK, signed the 2nd amendment to the Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA), European Air Group’s basic document. It was the last of seven signatures that were needed to ratify the document. At the French Embassy in London it was the French official representative who put his signature on this important document. In earlier sessions on 12 December 2011 and on 9 February 2012 at the Dutch and German Embassy the other nations’ official representatives had already signed the document. The next step will be to present the document to the UK parliament for ratification. Once this is done the nations will be informed that the IGA is now a legal and formal document. It is planned to have this complete before the UK Parliamentary recess for the summer.

EAG has developed the new EMS C130 WISE page before handing the project over to EATC

padd — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:10:25 +0000

The European air Group (EAG) took over the permanent Secretariat of the European C-130 Maintenance Symposium (EMS) from the hosting maintenance contractor in 2008 and has been the responsible for the day to day management, development and improvement of this independent body. During the next EMS 2012 the European Airlift Transport Command (EATC) will take over the Permanent Secretariat of this Directorate as a recognition of its value and further development expectations carrying out the posts’ responsibilities and tasks on a daily basis at no-cost to the Member Nations, providing continuity to EMS in general and to the chairman in particular.

More info at https://volcanex.euroairgroup.org/EMSC130.