The upcoming edition of exercise “Colibri” will take place between the 7th and 13rd of September 2012. More than 1200 soldiers will participate in different scenarios.
Some of the involved aircraft, e.g. German C-160, Belgian C-130 and several French Hercules, Transall and CASA CN-235 are provided by “Volfa”, a French lead Air Force exercise, that will be conducted almost simultaneously at nearby locations.
Volfa is dealing with combined air operations (COMAO) as well as combat search and rescue (CSAR), which is now exeptionally merged into the frequent running episode of Colibri, focussing on paratrooping and cargo-drops.
The goal of Colibri, which was implemented by France in 1962, is to develop the interoperability in-between the foreign units in peacekeeping and non-combatant evacuation operations.
EATC provides a lot of planning, liaison and administration to keep the exercise running.
On top of that the responsible EATC TREX (Functional Division/Training and Exercise) is planning the next seral stage of Colibri - taking part between the 3rd and 13th of December 2012 - with approximately 2000 soldiers participating, including French, British, German and Belgian troopers.
Text: Norbert Thomas