Air Traffic Control Squadron News Exercise SNOW EAGLE

On 22nd January, six members of the Air Traffic Control Squadron travelled from Heathrow airport to The Robson Resilience Centre in Bavaria to take part in serial 3 of Exercise Snow Eagle 2023. After a five-hour coach journey, an overnight stay at RAF Northolt, a 2 hour-flight and a further 2 and a half-hour coach trip we arrived in Bavaria along with 20 other staff from across the UK and Overseas.

Ex Snow Eagle caters for skiers of all abilities, from Basic Winter Resilience Training (SF1), Winter Resilience Training (SF2), to Advanced Winter Resilience Training (SF3); with inexperienced skiers AS1 Noon & AS1 WintonWright along with Sergeant Wall & Sergeant Ross taking part in SF1, Fg Off Lorraine on SF2, and Flt Lt O’Gorman completing SF3.

The week starts with a series of briefs, kitting, ice breakers and allocation of accommodation, and with the Leeming group all sharing one large room, the opportunity to create Unit cohesion and form new working relationships. Day two began with a series of briefs, capturing meteorological reports and avalanches theory, before hitting the slopes for a skiing assessment, allowing the instructor staff to gauge skiing competency before grouping similar abilities together.

The SF1 groups started with basic skiing skills, mastering snow plough turns on the nursery slopes before taking to the lifts to put learning in to practise. Steadily moving on to plough-to-parallel turns, and finally parallel turns, the group were fortunate enough to move to more challenging resorts as the week and abilities progressed. We were blessed with excellent weather and conditions, and groups were given the opportunity to ski across different resorts in Bavaria and Austria, with my SF1 group skiing in Oberjoch, Sollereck, Heuberg, Ifen and Nebelhorn. As an experienced skier Fg Off Lorraine completed

SF2, exploring further skiing skills on-piste, before adventuring offpiste and conducting avalanche rescue and survival training. The group also had gained experience of ski touring, using ‘skins’ to ski uphill, before taking challenging off-piste routes down.

Flt Lt Rich O’Gorman, the most experienced of skiers within our group, spent the week completing the Advanced course, SF3. After spending the first day and a half honing personal skiing skills, the group were given the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their proficiency and knowledge to safely lead the group throughout the remainder of the week off-piste. Avalanche transmitter followed before an afternoon of ski touring up a Bavarian mountain called Spieser, before removing the ‘skins’ and skiing down a challenging tree-covered off-piste area. Thursday and Friday brought about the culmination of their training with an overnight expedition staying in a mountain hut on Grunhorn, before touring up and skiing down Hahlekopf.

Unfortunately, due to the cross section of abilities our group of 6 was spread across 5 different groups, however the local ApresSki (and local beer!) gave ample opportunity for team cohesion throughout and despite some loud snoring, the team were certainly well bonded at the end of the week! An excellent week was capped by all attendees comfortably meeting the standards required to pass their respective courses, each gaining a JSAT qualification. An extremely rewarding week, with lots of learning, multiple comedy falls and a plenty of good fun had by all.