At home again

The main priority of Exercise Lion Effort was the conduct of Composite Air Operations (COMAO). Moreover, the pilots also flew one-on-one air combat missions, and also had the opportunity to practice air combat tactics at close range against Eurofighter jets.

During the training, besides the JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft of the Hungarian Defence Forces, the countries of the Gripen Users Group (GUG) were represented by the host nation Czechia and the fresh NATO member Sweden, stationed at Caslav airbase. The Thai air force sent observers to the exercise, who always had occasion to gain practical experiences in the rear seats of the two-seat aircraft. The German Eurofighters and Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) planes as well as the Polish F-16 fighter jets also joined some of the tasks. In the first week, the hosts combined Exercise Ramstein Guard with Lion Effort, which enabled the contractor Draken International to operate ground-based jammers to create a realistic simulated electronic warfare (EW) environment for the missions flown during this phase.

This time again, the pilots and ground crew of the HDF 101st Aviation Wing have demonstrated their preparedness at this exercise, so the other nations hold their professionalism and performance in high esteem.