After successfully hosting the first of four 2019 MAGDAY events, the German Air Force conducted the second iteration of this multinational exercise from the 18th to 22nd of March.
NATO say that more than 20 German fighter, transport and support aircraft were joined by military aircraft from Allies Poland, the Czech Republic and France to conduct multinational air missions above the Northern Sea.
While the Polish F-16 fighters flew in from their home bases, the Czech Gripen jets deployed to Jagel Air Base in the north of Gemany. The French aircraft were hosted at Wunstorf Air Base near Hanover. German Eurofighter and Tornados from all six tactical air force wings participated in the MAGDAY and were air-to-air refuelled by a Transport Wing 62 A400M transport aircraft.
The MAGDAYs are regular training events for the Multinational Air Group, for which Germany is the framework nation. Each event is comprised of two-day preparation and flying phases and gauges progress made and further increased interoperability among the participating Allies.
According to the Alliance:
“Under NATO’s Framework Nations Concept (FNC) Germany has accepted the role of framework nation responsible for a Multinational Air Group and for standing up so-called larger formations of Allied Air Forces. These formations are to provide NATO with interoperable, well-trained and operational flying assets. A key element in this endeavour will be the development of capabilities during training and exercise events.”
“Both our Allies and or own operational units benefit from these recurring exercises,” said Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, Chief of the German Air Force.
“Multinationality is and will remain a central aspect of almost all our projects. Consequently, we are continuously further developing our capabilities together with our Allies and take decisive steps toward operational readiness of the MAG,” added General Gerhartz.
I bet getting all these planes flight worthy in time was a headache for the engineers! I’m not even sure why a military lightweight country such asGermany feels the need to hold this sort of thing, it’s not like they take defence seriously!
Germany has more personnel in there millitary than the UK! 30,000 more. I don’t know how though!
More of their budget goes to personnel versus modernization and training. So they have a large number of troops who wouldn’t meet the US or UK training standard anymore.
I guess they can gather some seviceable ME109’s!
The Luftwaffe must have scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with 20 flyable aircraft… Wonder how many of the fighters could actually fight?
Cheers.
But they only have weapons for 4 so the others have to throw sourcrout at their opponents.
(Insert German Armed Forces equipment doesn’t work joke here)
Lol. There is a huge List.
Actually There really is but not on all their ships !
Yeah it’s getting Old! Germany’s a bigger arms industry equipment supplier than the UK unfortunately! They must be doing something right…. But obviously the few huge mistakes with frigates and no aircraft available seems to have stuck….