Gert Kromhout reports from Šiauliai Air Base, Lithuania, on the Koninklijke Luchtmacht’s most recent NATO Baltic Air Policing mission
Protecting the Baltic States’ airspace is what the Baltic Air Policing (BAP) mission is all about. These tiny states do not have a fighter force themselves and rely on NATO fighters based on their soil on 24/7 alert status, like the quick-reaction alert (QRA) maintained across all NATO countries. A control and reporting centre activates the QRA when an aircraft enters Baltic airspace without having filed a flight plan or without identifying itself. That aircraft may be a combat aircraft from another country, but equally it may be an airliner. Within a very short period of time, two fully armed fighters must be in the air to monitor the intercepted aircraft, take photos and escort the bogey.
NATO established the BAP QRA post at Šiauliai Air Base when the three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, joined NATO in 2004. A second QRA station was established in 2014 in Estonia at Ämari Air Base. The detachments are replaced by other units every four months.
The Ämari detachment was manned by Luftwaffe Eurofighters when the Dutch were at Šiauliai. Polish F-16s took up the air policing cudgel on May 2 when the Dutch left for home. The Baltic Sea is mostly surrounded by NATO countries, but two relatively small pieces of coast belong to Russia. In the northeast is the St Petersburg area situated between Finland and Estonia. In the south is the heavily militarised Kaliningrad oblast, sandwiched between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. A wide range of military aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems are based in Kaliningrad, which itself can be reached from St Petersburg by sea or via Finland and the Baltic States.
First intercept
Four Dutch F-16AMs arrived in Lithuania in early January to take over the mission from the French Armée de l’Air that had maintained the BAP detachment with four Mirage 2000-5s since late August 2016. Within a couple of days, the Dutch were fully operational and said goodbye to the French. The detachment made its first real intercept on January 26. The bogeys were a Russian Antonov An-26 Curl and a Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer flying north from Kaliningrad in international airspace close to the Baltic States. Flight plans had been filed but the aircrafts’ transponders were not registering and the pilots were not in contact with air traffic control. After that busy start, however, real scrambles, known as alpha scrambles, did not occur that often. The detachment expected that such scrambles would increase as the year moved on and the weather improved. The spring and summer months see more exercises conducted by the Russians in the Baltic and over Kaliningrad. BAP pilots are eager to do alpha scrambles. It breaks the monotony of daily life on base, and they get to see aircraft they usually don’t see at home. Major Martin, Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLU) detachment commander (Detco) at Šiauliai, said: “Every pilot wants to do an alpha scramble, but we have zero influence on that. If we do such a scramble, the pilots move to their aircraft in a slightly more excited mood.” After returning, they enter the operations building in what Martin euphemistically describes as ‘a professionally enthusiastic state’ and everybody wants to know everything about the intercept. The F-16AMs are equipped with the new Sniper targeting pod, which is used to make images of the intercepted aircraft, although pilots also have a conventional camera with them. The KLU would not give the actual number of alpha scrambles it had executed. According to Šiauliai base commander Colonel Marius Matulaitis, the number of these scrambles has increased since the beginning of 2014: “More or less every detachment has the same number of scrambles per rotation.” Although the Baltic States border Russia in the east, the intercepts only concern military and civilian traffic over the Baltic Sea. A senior Dutch pilot said: “We, as well as the Russians, stay away from that border to avoid building up tension.”
Tango scrambles
No alpha scrambles does not mean no flying. The detachments perform training scrambles on a daily base. The Dutch regularly launch so-called Tango scrambles against the Aero Vodochody L-39s of the Lietuvos karinės oro pajėgos (LK KOP or Lithuanian Air Force) which are also based at Šiauliai. Alternatively, they fly against the Siły Powietrzne Rzeczpospolita Polska (Air Force of the Republic of Poland). They also practise 1 v 1 or air-to ground exercises, although the training value is limited. Air combat manoeuvres with the Poles take place just over the Polish border. Major Martin says: “We train against different numbers of opponents, sometimes up to five aircraft. However, because we fly with live weapons we are limited in what we can do, because of peace-time safety restrictions.” The Šiauliai-det does not train with the Ämaridet: “We can only do a training scramble if the Ämari-det is not in the air in that period and vice versa. We are never simultaneously airborne for training.” Depending on the circumstances, other NATO countries around the Baltic can also activate their QRAs.
The two BAP detachments report to the Combined Air Operations Centre at Uedem in Germany. Martin said: “They have the overall air picture and see what is recognised and what not. They activate the QRA if necessary and decide which QRA station should do the intercept. The scramble procedure is exactly the same as in all other NATO countries. We do the intercept under guidance of the control and reporting centre.” Because of the limited training opportunities, pilots deploy to Šiauliai for only three weeks. The crew chiefs also return to their home base after that period. The remainder of the supporting personnel and the Detco stay for six weeks.
Base upgrade
Major Martin was part of the first Dutch detachment to Lithuania in 2005. He recognises the huge changes the air base has undergone since: “Back then the runway was largely inoperable. The length was not the problem, but the quality was. Only the first 1,500 feet were properly asphalt paved and usable. The remainder consisted of the concrete plates typical for Russian runways, but that had not been properly maintained by the Lithuanians since the Russians left in the early 1990s and could not be used by our F-16s. The elevation difference between those plates was sometimes more than 100mm [4in]. Take-off was not a problem, provided we flew without external fuel tanks and with not more than two missiles; landing was challenging! We had to pull our drag ’chute just before touchdown, and we had to make sure that we were at taxi speed when we reached the end of the asphalt. Nowadays, the two runways are in excellent condition. That allows us to fly the F-16s with two external fuel tanks and four missiles.”
Major Martin also praises the facilities for cold weather operations: “When it is below 25ºC with a strong wind blowing over the base you really get to appreciate the fantastic snow removal machines and warm shelters.”
Improvements have also been made to the QRA sheds and operations building. According to Col Matulaitis, many more improvements are being made and more air operations are planned. He said: “The air base will definitely host more aircraft in the future. We are developing this base, and a lot of new infrastructure projects are going on. There is a lot of money coming from different sources, and starting this year, we are building a new apron for the fighters, new squadron operations building, repairing a lot of taxiways and upgrading both runways. By the end of this year, we will have totally different capabilities and a much bigger capacity.”
Appreciated
In 1990, Lithuania declared independence from Russia, which had occupied the country since World War Two. There is a general fear that Russia will try to take it back. Major Martin acknowledged the local population’s appreciation for NATO’s efforts. He said: “Recently, I attended the commemoration of independence from Russia, and you hear they are glad we are here. The period of occupation and suppression is still fresh in their minds. They realise that freedom cannot be taken for granted as it is in the Netherlands. Appreciation of NATO’s efforts is also shown by the many school classes and other Lithuanians such as military people that visit us. They see that NATO cares about the Baltic States.”
Colonel Matulaitis endorses the words of Major Martin: “Of course, it is really nice that the Dutch and other NATO countries come here to protect us. We are not able to perform air police missions over our territories ourselves. When Lithuania joined NATO in 2004 a new task emerged for us: to host the air policing detachments that come to our country on a rotational basis. We rely on our allies, and we have been hosting this mission since joining NATO. We have had 17 nations participating in this mission so far. We are really glad to have them here. It shows the solidarity of the NATO community.”
Matulaitis said that at the beginning the local population complained about the noise. “The Lithuanian Air Force didn’t have such noisy aircraft. The people had forgotten what real fighters sounded like. That was at the beginning, but right now, everything has changed. I haven’t had any noise complaints recently. The people understand that this mission, done by our NATO allies, is important to the sovereignty of our airspace. The locals like to see the fighters in the sky and ask the detachments to perform low fly-bys during national celebrations. I personally like the sound of jet engines. In my opinion, there should be a lot of flights and noise at the airfield; otherwise the base will become a ghost base.”
An assured future
QRA in Lithuania is scheduled to remain for many years. According to Colonel Matulaitis, the country has no plans for the acquisition of its own fighter aircraft: “We are a small country with a limited budget, so priority is being given to the army at the moment. We are trying to maintain a small L-39 fleet that provides training for fighter controllers and joint terminal attack controllers. It helps us to train our pilots, and to develop the fundamentals for the future air force. The upgrade of our helicopter fleet to western types is on the short-term planning list, and after that we will see.”
