TWENTY YEARS OF ESTONIAN AIRSPACE CONTROL Lieutenant Alari Tihkan

TWENTY YEARS OF ESTONIAN AIRSPACE CONTROL

Lieutenant Alari Tihkan Chief of Training and Exercise Control and Reporting Centre Tallinn

he new building of the Control and Reporting Centre was officially opened in Tallinn on 10 January 2020. The combined centre of the three Baltic States in Karmėlava, Lithuania, which administered the operations in the region so far, ceased operation at the end of 2019 and its duties were transferred to separate control units of the three countries, located in Tallinn, Lielvārde and Karmėlava.

The opening of the Control and Reporting Centre Tallinn (CRC Tallinn) is a remarkable milestone in the development of the Estonian Air Force and offers a good moment for a look back on the conduct of air operations in Estonia, especially over the past six years, when the regional air policing and defence capabilities have significantly increased.

The Air Surveillance Wing was founded in 1998 and the Air Sovereignty Operations Centre (ASOC), the predecessor of the current CRC, was established in 2000. Initially, only air surveillance was carried out, in a limited extent and with small crews. The Recognized Air Picture (RAP) was created on the basis of data received from civilian radars and one P-37 Soviet-era primary radar.

In 2001, 24-hour shifts was introduced and since then, airspace surveillance in Estonia has remained uninterrupted. Since 2003, several state-of-the-art primary radars have been added to the Estonian air surveillance system, which provide an excellent overview of what is happening both within and outside our national airspace. In 2009, the fighter control capability was added.

With the development of a new comprehensive NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS), it was decided in 2012 that the future direction in the Baltic region would be the closure of the combined Karmėlava Control and Reporting Centre and the establishment of three separate national centres.

In March 2014, only days after the Russian Federation’s occupation of Crimea, six F-15 type fighter jets and a KC-135 Stratotanker from the United States arrived in the Baltic region in order to complement the US air policing mission already under way in Lithuania. As they left, as many as four different detachments – two T

from Šiauliai, one from Ämari, and one from Malbork in Poland – started their Baltic Air Policing rotation on May 1. This was NATO’s tangible and prompt response to the new situation to strengthen the defence of our region’s airspace.

Due to the sharp increase of military air traffic, an additional control unit was needed, as the combined centre was no longer able to manage the entire airspace of the Baltic region.

Due to the sharp increase of military air traffic, an additional control unit was needed, as the combined centre was no longer able to manage the entire airspace of the Baltic region. As a result, the former Estonian Control and Reporting Post in Ämari (CRP Ämari) also began controlling the air policing missions on a regular basis. Since 2014, the role of today’s CRC as a control unit for fighter jets and other military aircraft in the Baltics has been increasing year by year, and it has become an important element in NATO’s Air Policing and the organization of regional air-to-air training missions. A DIFFERENT SECURITY ENVIRONMENT In summer 2016, the largest air-to-air exercise ever conducted in Estonia – Aircraft Training Deployment – was carried out to practice air combat training. Manoeuvres of sixteen US F-15 fighter jets were controlled from CRP Ämari. Every year, the Estonian operations personnel also participates in the Ramstein Alloy live exercise series, where NATO allies, together with partners from Finland and Sweden, practice air policing missions of different nature over the Baltic States and the Baltic Sea region.

In addition to exercises in a real-world environment, air operations control is also practised in a simulated environment, which makes it possible to play through scenarios that would be too dangerous or im

possible to create during peacetime. Examples of such exercises include the Uedem Awakening exercise series led by the Combined Air Operations Centre Uedem (CAOC Uedem) and the combined exercise Baltic Warrior, played by the three Baltic States.

In the simulated environment, medium-range surface based air defence is also practised, which in the context of integrated air defence is an organic duty of a CRC. In the last years, the Estonian operators have also participated in the largest annual air defence exercise involving NATO member states – Tobruq Legacy. In the future, it is planned to take part in the integrated air and missile defence exercise Astral Knight, led by the US, which will focus on defending the region against ballistic missiles.

The above-mentioned developments and activities have significantly increased the operational capability of CRC Tallinn. This is evidenced by international courses organized by the CRC, with regular participation of Latvian and Lithuanian airmen. For more than a decade, the Estonian controllers and surveillance specialists have participated in the air policing mission in Iceland, supporting their US counterparts. THE FUTURE OF BALTIC COOPERATION The preparations for CRC Tallinn lasted for years: new cooperation agreements were made, numerous new employees were recruited, and thousands of hours of training were provided. As a result, Estonia now has a state-of-the-art air operations centre, which is capable of planning and conducting air policing and air defence operations that can be integrated with allied land, naval, and air force elements through modern data links.

From the beginning of this year, the working routine in the BALTNET (Baltic Air Surveillance Network) framework changed. As of 2020, all three Baltic States create the RAP in their respective areas of responsibility, and the responsibility for controlling air policing missions rotates between the three centres according to a pre-agreed schedule. The existence of three equivalent centres instead of the former one provides greater flexibility and sustainability in the region’s air operations management capability. In the event of malfunctions in the systems of one centre, the other centres are able to continue the control of the airspace at very short notice.

Thanks to the new Control and Reporting Centre in Tallinn, Estonia can perform integrated layered air defence, which in addition to the air-to-air operations includes electronic warfare, medium-range air defence and air-to-land operations. The centre’s biggest goal in near future is to pass NATO’s tactical evaluation (TACEVAL) to determine its compliance with NATO standards.