The Canadian Armed Forces concluded the deployment of a Royal Canadian Air Force detachment and a mobile air surveillance radar system to Iceland with redeploying all personnel and materiel to Canada this week, according to NATO.
The mission of Operation ILLUMINATION was to ensure continuity of long-range radar coverage while Iceland’s stationary radars underwent an upgrade.
“Throughout our deployment under Operation ILLUMINATION, the members of Air Detachment-Iceland have demonstrated unparalleled professionalism and flexibility at every turn; I am proud to have commanded such an exemplary group,” said Major Jonathan Gilbert, Commanding Officer, Air Det-Iceland/Operation ILLUMINATION.
“Our mandate since we began operations has been to support Iceland while the country modernized its surveillance radar systems, which are of strategic importance to NATO as the radars provide situational awareness in the middle of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap.”
After having operated the AN/TPS-70 radar at two of the Icelandic Coast Guard sites and monitoring Icelandic coastal approaches, NATO state that the 25-strong team redeployed and arrived in Canada on May 26th, 2020
I’m guessing the U.S. or NATO will be footing the bill for those new radars.
What makes you think that? Canada is in NATO and deploying on loan isn’t a bad thing is it.