At the end of the first day of “Air Defender”, the Air Force drew a positive balance: 98 percent of the flights had been carried out. The cooperation of the 25 nations – apparently smoothly. What is practiced in Germany is an emergency in Ukraine – and present in the minds of many soldiers.
250 fighter jets from 25 nations with around 1000 participants – this is how the superlatives of “Air Defender” can be summed up very quickly. But the logisticians at the Wunstorf air base near Hanover, which forms the “logistical hub” for the exercise, already had their superlatives in the run-up to the exercise: about 70,000 tons of gravel, which were carted here in the last few months, around the mobile kerosene tanks embed, from which the participating jets are supplied with fuel.
The soldiers of the armed forces base – these are the logisticians of the Bundeswehr – have set up a kind of pop-up tank farm here: eight monstrous tanks made of soft plastic, each embedded in its own gravel bed, which only take on their shape when they are filled with liquid. All eight tanks together hold 2.4 million liters of kerosene. The logisticians have calculated that the 250 fighter jets will probably consume up to a million liters of kerosene a day. “I said to my boys and girls, ‘What we’re doing here isn’t practice for me, it’s a commitment.’ And that’s how I treat him,” says Major Peter Pöhlmann, the company commander.
He is alluding to what had no influence on the design of this air defense exercise that had been planned for years. But it is still up in the air in Wunstorf that 2,000 kilometers to the east Ukrainian troops, some of whom were trained on German soil and equipped with German tanks, are fighting for the lives and freedom of their compatriots. What is being simulated in the sky over Germany this week is the emergency that has lasted for 15 months.
“That’s what our allies demand”
“A NATO mission in the east could be fueled from here,” says Pöhlmann, and that’s no more than a mind game, but these days it seems unusually close. That is why the first Ukrainian successes in the offensive, Russian aggression is not only an issue among German and foreign soldiers after work, as some say, but also when Luftwaffe Inspector Ingo Gerhartz talks about “Air Defender”. About the fact that fighter planes were deployed to Lithuania on the first day today and are returning in the evening. The Baltic states do not have their own fighter jets, which is why NATO has secured their airspace since 2004. “That’s what our eastern allies are demanding,” says Gerhartz. “This reassurance that we are showing, of course, they too are an integral part of this NATO.”
The view to the east seems to be omnipresent in “Air Defender”, and at the same time the air force chief emphasizes that the exercise is not intended as a signal against anyone. “It is a signal to us, directed inwards, into NATO,” says Gerhartz, “that we are in a position to defend this country and this alliance.”
“We flew in formation, that was great”
On today’s first day, the main focus was on acclimatization flights. The pilots “have to get used to the new airspace, the different nations”, everyone adapts to one another. However, the pilots of the tankers had a lot to do. From Wunstorf they fly to Bavaria and also to the northern and eastern training areas to provide fuel for the jets. “We flew in formation with eight Jetties and a bomber, that was great,” enthuses one of the pilots at the end of the shift.
Summary of the first day “Air Defender”: Of 147 planned flights, 144 could be carried out. Two “F-15” fighter jets and a drone from the Czech Republic did not take off, which according to the Air Force had no technical reasons. “98 percent of the flights have been carried out,” says Lieutenant Colonel Matthias Boehnke, spokesman for the “Air Defender” exercise, “which is an extremely good figure.”
From tomorrow the demanding operations are on the program – air combat, sealing off the airspace, close air support for ground troops. The Ukrainians lack the latter at the front, which is currently costing them many soldiers’ lives. Although the West planned its air-laying exercise well in advance, its “F-16” coalition is too late for the Ukrainian offensive.