Portugal hosts a live-fly exercise in a joint multinational environment that features 35 aircraft and 1,500 personnel from the Portuguese Air Force, Army and Navy and military forces from Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States and NATO (E-3A AWACS and DA-20).
Training takes place in a realistic environment, as close as possible to current theatres of operation, to prepare participating nations for international missions in operational scenarios and to develop interoperability between participating Allies.
The exercise includes air defence, convoy protection in humanitarian missions, close air support to ground forces and special operations, extraction of military and civilian elements, cargo and paratroopers drops, combat search and rescue, aeromedical evacuations, civil-military cooperation, conventional guided and high-accuracy ordnance attacks and conventional attacks on maritime forces.
Among several civil-military cooperation activities a “Spotters day” took place, attended by more than 150 avionics enthusiasts coming from several countries to watch the take-offs and landings of the aircraft at Monte Real Airbase.