Trapani airbase – April 2011
I spent Apr. 12, 2011, (Day 25 of Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector) at Trapani-Birgi, one of the most active forward operating bases for the Libyan crisis. The airbase is the operative headquarters of the Italian Air Force contingent, to be soon become a Task Group “Air” and put under the direct command of Col. Mauro Gabetta, Cdr of the 37° Stormo. The base permanently hosts the NATO Forward Operating Base and, since Odyssey Dawn began, the Task Force Libeccio, the air detachment of the Canadian Armed Forces deployed on Operation Mobile. The overall flying activity was pretty intense on Day 25 with several Tornado ECR and IDS missions since early morning, a CC-150 tanker sortie and 2 RAF VC-10s sorties plus the usual training activity of the local based 18° Gruppo with its F-16 ADFs. The Typhoons did not fly until the evening, most probably because scheduled for night CAPs. As the 37° Stormo PAO, Lt.Col. Di Battista explained: “there’s no fixed schedule since the operative activity depends on NATO taskings. There are days in which the flying activity is mainly during daylight and others when it is shifted towards night”. The base is operative on an H24 basis.
Read the rest of the article on my weblog: Operation Unified Protector (was Odyssey Dawn) explained (Day 25)
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