Exercise Astral Knight 2019

Astral Knight 2019, a US Air Forces in Europe led exercise was held in Southern Europe during the first week of June 2019. This four day exercise was the first of its kind and involved US and coalition forces to operate from locations in Italy, Germany, Slovenia and Croatiawith airmen and soldiers from the United States working together with service members from Italy, Slovenia and Croatia from the main operating baseAviano Air Base in the North-East of Italy with the Adriatic Sea providing the area of operations. 

The exercise is a combination of air and missile defence operations focused on conducting defence of key terrain. Through Astral Knight 2019, armed personnel were trained in flight operations and computer-assisted scenarios with an aim to enhance the command and control integration, coordination and interoperability of air, land and sea capabilities. In addition, it also replaced the issue of overlapping operations with the integrated air and missile defencesystem. Integrated air and missile defence incorporates offensive and defensive measures to create a comprehensive combined force, capable of preventing an enemy from effectively employing its offensive air and missile weapons. In an environment where competitors are rapidly strengthening their air and missile threat capabilities with new manned and unmanned aircraft systems, stealthy cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, and advanced ballistic missiles, it becomes very important to maintain high quality integrated air missile defencesystem. 

For real life scenarios, the United States Army, from the 10th Army Air and Missile Defence Command had installed several Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in Slovenia and from there, they created all required training scenarios. Flying out of the home bases were Italian Air Force F-35s, Eurofighter Typhoons and a Gulfstream G550 providing Conformal Airborne Early Warning capabilities. Flying out of Zadar Air Base, near the Adriatic Sea were the Croatian Air Force MiG-21s which were relocated for the exercise from their home base Zagreb - Pleso. Operating from Aviano Air Base were theF-16s from the 31st Fighter Wing and they were joined by 12 F-35s from 421stFighter Squadron and 466th Fighter Squadron, based at Hill Air Force Base. In support, there wereKC-135s flying from both Aviano and Spangdahlem in Germany,to provide air-to-air refuelling, as well as E-3s providing airborne early warning and control capabilities. Squadron Commanderof the 421st Fighter Squadron and F-35 fighter pilot Lt. Col. Orzechowskistated, “This is a great opportunity for us to practice our interoperability with our allies as well as the other participants from the US side. Though our F-35 squadron was formed a year ago, we did not receive our first aircraft until November of 2018. Before we had aircraft, the pilots who were assigned to the squadron flew with the other F-35 squadrons at Hill AFB and as we received more aircraft and more pilots, we were able to shift to autonomous operations. Now we practice frequently with the other squadrons depending if we can align our schedules or not. This has given us the right amount of preparation to participate in Astral Knight 2019”.

Since Astral Knight was conducted for the first time, lot of new possible scenarios will be integrated in the coming years. This will also ensure that in the future more NATO allies and partners will be incorporated into the exercise adding to the complexity and possibilities of sharing information among member states.

Text and photos: Erik Bruijns

A 421st FS F-35