Throughout the year, EATC leads major European trainings and courses in the domains of air transport, air-to-air refuelling, maintenance, “Combined Air Terminal Operations”, etc...
The Training & Exercises branch organises these events implementing the expertise of the Employment branch, as well as the Technical & Logistical branch. Together they offer highly professional trainings such as the European Air Refuelling Training (EART), Disabled Aircraft Recovery Training (DART) or Combined Air Terminal Operations courses (CATO) Initial Combined Air Terminal Training (ICATT) and Advanced Combined Air Terminal Training (ACATT)). Moreover, they provide an E-learning tool to support the trainings.
The three branches work in close cooperation with EATC’s member nations, third nations, the European Defence Agency and the European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC). EATC also supports the European Tactical Airlift Programme (ETAP).
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Through multinational training, common EATC standards and procedures are promoted across Europe.
Through interoperability and common procedures, tomorrow our nations will be more efficient in operations.
Through this efficient approach, our nations may relinquish costly air mobility solutions.
E-Learning
EATC launched its E-learning platform in 2016. With this innovative learning instrument, EATC moved from the sole academic courses to a cost-effective and flexible learning tool offering a permanent improved performance and highly professional interactive courses. Moreover, a permanent access to harmonized tactics, procedures and techniques is guaranteed.
The platform currently focuses on courses for air crews, but will in a second step also offer E-learning content to air terminal operations specialists, maintenance personnel, aeromedical experts and others. It is a prerequisite to complete the E-learning phase prior to attending a training or a course. The E-learning guarantees that the participants know the common procedures which need to be applied and can thus profit to a maximum from their practical training.
Disabled Aircraft Recovery Training – DART
DART is a multinational training in the domain of aircraft recovery, organised by EATC and hosted by an EATC member nation. DART has been organised since 2012 and takes place on a yearly basis. The training is open to all EATC member nations and, upon invitation, to other interested nations.
The overall objective of DART is to allow crews to stay sufficiently trained in the area of aircraft recovery, to familiarise less experienced crews with air recovery skills and to exchange views on pooling and sharing equipment. The training is based on the EATC Aircraft Recovery Aide Mémoire (EARM) developed by EATC experts. Each year, the participants train in different scenarios recovering decommissioned airplanes and helicopters.
Ahead of the training session, EATC and the participating nations appoint station leaders, who are responsible for developing different scenarios per aircraft type. These scenarios describe which kind of incident occurred and are in line with EATC’s training objectives. As an example: a G222 veers off the runway due to crosswind. The station leader also defines, based on the respective scenario, the aircraft recovery operation to train the students and draws up his lesson plan. Moreover, he discusses material lists with his fellow station leaders and the host nation. During an exercise, every DART trainee passes through all four work-stations.
EATC supports the host nation, the station leaders, and the participants throughout the preparation efforts and the actual training.
In 2019, EATC completed DART introducing the “Disabled Aircraft Recovery Officer” (DARO) training. DARO targets aircraft recovery team leaders taking responsibility to perform efficient aircraft recovery operations with their teams.
European Air Refuelling Training – EART
In 2014, EATC introduced the EART training following EDA’s air-to-air-refuelling initiative. Lessons learned from the past showed that for a smooth multinational operation, nations need to train together in advance.
EART is currently organised on a yearly basis. It is a dedicated multinational training concept in the air-to-air-refuelling for European nations. Upon invitation, other nations may also participate.
The aim of EART is to train tanker crews, planners, taskers and engineers, including maintenance personnel, in air-to-air refuelling operations. Thanks to the effective pooling with a fighter exercise, EART offers a unique opportunity to the nations to train their tanker and fighter crews in planning and executing missions within a realistic and multinational framework. The crews increase their know-how in complex multinational scenarios and exchange information and procedures among tanker and fighter crews. Moreover, EART facilitates the certification processes between tankers and receiver aircraft.
Whereas in the past objectives focused on a yearly cross “combat ready” training for tankers and fighters, the future will be oriented towards the certification process for participants.
EART has become an embedded rendez-vous for the air-to-air-refuelling community. It is a successful example of pooling and sharing military air capabilities.
For further information click here to download the last EART facsheet.
Combined Air Terminal Operations (CATO) courses
In the field of CATO, EATC organises two major courses:
- the Advanced Combined Air Terminal Training (ACATT);
- the Combined Air Terminal Training (CATT)
EATC took over the lead of these two courses from the European Air Group (EAG) in 2016. They are organised by EATC on a yearly basis with the support of EATC member nations. The courses increase the range of EATC’s cross-national training and exercise platform. Both events are open to all EATC and EAG member nations, as well as to any other interested nations.
Advanced Combined Air Terminal Training (ACATT)
The ACATT aims at training experienced handlers in a multinational framework, strengthening existing skills and improving interoperability within the nations.
It offers both academics and on the job-training covering the whole scale of handling operations, including training in special procedures such as engine running on loads / off loads and winching.
Initial Combined Air Terminal Training (ICATT)
The ICATT is a basic interoperable training for junior air movements personnel. It aims at providing junior ground handlers with the skills and knowledge necessary to integrate successfully into a multinational environment. It is organised on a yearly basis.
European Tactical Airlift Programme - ETAP
The ETAP comprises airlift trainings (ETAP-T), tactical training courses for crew members (ETAP-C) and courses for instructor pilots and loadmasters (ETAP-I). Moreover, a yearly symposium discusses the common European procedures and facilitates the exchange of experience between the different nations (ETAP-S). For more information on the dates of the different events, please check our calendar.
The ETAP is executed by a permanent multinational training centre: the European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC) located in Zaragoza, Spain. All seven EATC member nations are members of ETAC. Both institutions work closely together in order to offer efficient and tailored airlift training in Europe, and to increase the interoperability among all partners.
EATC supports ETAP with supplementary personnel during the trainings and courses and by chairing the Standardisation Board (StdB), which advises about the ETAP Techniques, Tactics and Procedures (ETTP), course syllabi and Training objectives. ETTP is a normative document on which the syllabi of the ETAP-Cs and ETAP-Is are based. EATC is furthermore responsible for supervising the consistency of airlift training.
The ETAP trainings and courses are open to the 13 ETAP nations (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Norway, Austria and Romania) and, upon approval, to other nations.
