Anatolian Eagle Exercise 2021

Anatolian Eagle 2021 was a two week live tactical flight training exercise conducted between 21 June and 2 July and hosted by Third Main Jet Base Konya, Turkey. Units from the Turkish Air Force and Navy, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Qatar Emiri Air Force and the NATO E-3A AWACS participated in the exercise.
The exercise was designed to provide training opportunities for combat ready aircrews to increase proficiency and exchange experiences with allied and partner nations. The airspace east of Konya, above the Anatolian Plateau, is perfectly suited for the execution of air operations such as Composite Air Operations, Dynamic Targeting, Close Air Support, Anti Surface Warfare, Air to Air refuelling and more.
The exercise provides the participating Turkish and foreign nations air forces an interesting opportunity to perform joint combat training in real-world scenarios that include Combined Air Operations (COMAOs) on tactical and strategic targets defended by Aggressors aircraft and Surface to Air Missile (SAM) threats of all types. A wide array of missions are planned and executed during Anatolian Eagle, spanning from CAP (Combat Air Patrol), Fighter Sweep and SEAD/DEAD (Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses) to AI (Air Interdiction), CAS (Close Air Support) and CSAR (Combat SAR).
The objectives of the training were to increase the operational level of the pilots and air defense personnel in a most realistic environment, to develop joined and combined operational procedures, to decrease the attritions to a minimum level and to increase mission effectiveness to a maximum level in a real operational environment, to give a chance to fighter pilots to execute their planned tactics to employ in large force compositions, to provide a forum to exchange ideas and lessons learnt and to train the partecipants as they fight and teach them how to survive.