Air Centric Personal Recovery Operative Course 2018 was held at the Dutch base of Gilze-Rijen, in the southern part of the Netherlands.

The 12th iteration of the Air Centric Personnel Recovery Operatives Course (APROC 2018) took place from May 23 to Jun. 7 at Gilze-Rijen, in the Netherlands, home of the Defense Helicopter Command (DHC) of the Royal Dutch Armed Forces.

Along with 577 personnel from 12 countries, several combat planes and helicopters supported the exercise: Dutch F-16s and Italian F-2000 Typhoons in the Fixed Wing RESCORT role; French AS555, Dutch AH-64 and Polish Mi-24 helicopters in the Rotary Wing RESCORT role; Dutch CH-47, Spanish AS332, French Navy NH-90, Royal Navy Merlin HC4, Italian Air Force HH-101 and ItNavy EH-101, Swedish Hkp.16a in the Extraction Vehicle role.

The photographs in this post, showing some of the participant aircraft, were taken at Gilze-Rijen airbase by Marco Ferrageau and Corne Rodenburg.

The exercise was also supported by the Italian Air Force G550 CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft belonging to the 14° Stormo (Wing) from Pratica di Mare airbase to Gilze-Rijen, that undertook the AMC (Airborne Mission Coordinator Role). The two Italian aircraft, MM62293/14-11 and MM62303/14-12 proved to be crucial as all the NATO E-3 AWACS jets that were supposed to support the drills from their homebase at Geilenkirchen cancelled their missions due to aircraft availability issues. Also Extraction Forces from Italy, Spain, UK, France and Sweden joined APROC 2018 as members of the primary training audience.

“The course aims to educate and train Aircrews and Extraction Forces in the implementation of internationally agreed techniques and procedures for Personnel Recovery operations as a member of a combined and joint force contingent,” says the European Personnel Recovery Center in a release published after the course. “The result of this kind of training will be an interoperable force that will be able to provide a viable PR capability for future contingencies. The course aims were achieved by planning and conducting 26 missions in 9 flying days, resulting in more than 140 sorties and 300 flight hours of the participating 20 aircraft. This training opportunity enables the participants to train the Personnel Recovery mission profile in a realistic and international environment that uses the processes and structures found in international operations. The APROC is currently the only European opportunity that focuses entirely on this mission set and attracts great interest in many countries.”

More than 30 aircraft (including support assets) took part in exercise APROC 2018. Next year’s iteration will be hosted by the Spanish Air Force at Zaragoza airbase.

We attended the tactical event that closed “Tende Scaglia 2016” exercise.

Taking place from Apr. 4 to 22, “Tende Scaglia 2016” (TS 16) was an exercise organized and managed by the 1^ Brigata Aerea Operazioni Speciali (1st Special Operations Air Brigade) of the Italian Air Force.

The MOB (Main Operating Base) of the TS 16 was Cervia airbase, on the Adriatic coast, that gathered 480 military belonging to 10 different units as well as several different assets: 2x HH-212, 2x HH-139, 1x EC-27J, 1x MC-27J and 1x HH-101.

Since the first HH-101A “Caesar” medium-lift helicopter was taken on charge by the ItAF in February 2016, the helicopter, a military variant of the AW.101 that will be used to perform personnel recovery and special forces missions, SAR (Search And Rescue) and CSAR missions, as well as medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) tasks did not actively take part in the exercise.

The last phase of the multidimensional exercise included several attacks to the base, a water supply contamination and a MEDEVAC event that The Aviationist’s reporter Pierpaolo Maglio had the opportunity to attend on Apr. 21.

The latter took place in the Italian Army range at Foce del Reno, 10-minute flight time from Cervia and started with a (simulated) suicide attack against a convoy and the subsequent explosion of a loaded truck. Immediately after the explosion, 3 VTLM (Veicolo Tattico Leggero Multiruolo – Multirole Lightweight Tactical Vehicle) Lince (Lynx) secured the zone and closing all access to the landing area with the onboard machine guns.

During this phase the MC-27J Praetorian gunship aircraft established a radio-link with the troops on the ground and called in the four MEDEVAC helicopters while an EC-27J Jedi prevented the attackers from using electronic devices to remotely detonate any Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The MEDEVAC was carried out by 2x HH-139s from the 15° Stormo (Wing), and 2x HH-212s from the 9° Stormo followed by a last HH-139 that was first refueled on the field by the FARP (Forward Arming & Refueling Point) of the 3° Stormo and then took off again to carry the last light injured to a field hospital (Camp Giudecca).

Along with the Special Ops C-27Js from the 46^ Brigata Aerea from Pisa, the exercise was supported by some “on-demand assets”: ItAF AMX tactical aircraft and Predator UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

Image credit: The Aviationist / Pierpaolo Maglio

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