The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) on 3 January ended its latest contribution to NATO’s Operation ‘Reassurance’ air task force enhanced air policing mission over Romania, which featured five Boeing CF-188 Hornet fighters.
Lieutenant Colonel Forrest Rock, RCAF air task force commander, told Jane’s on 3 January that Canada had aircraft, personnel, and resources standing by on quick reaction alert. NATO calls on the RCAF to scramble aircraft when it wants to identify or intercept an aircraft flying in the vicinity of NATO airspace over the Romanian flight information region. The RCAF’s territory is the east coast of Romania.
A Canadian CF-188 Hornet aircraft takes off from Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania during Operation 'Reassurance' on 4 September 2018. (Canadian Joint Operations Command)
Canada had been reporting to a combined air operations center (AOC) located at Torrejón Air Base in Spain. Lt Col Rock said this base has a very strong situational awareness of naval and air activities that take place over the Black Sea. The RCAF, he said, gets scrambled to identify or track an item of interest anytime there is, or appears to be, an incursion into NATO air space.
Enhanced air policing is an augmentation of Romania’s regular air policing. Lt Col Rock said Romania uses a mix of aircraft for regular air policing, including Russian MiG-21s in the region where the RCAF is contributing enhanced air policing. Romania recently purchased Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons and is phasing those in to compliment future air policing missions.
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