site.btaThis Year's First Exercise with US Squadron Held at Graf Ignatievo Air Base

This Year's First Exercise with US Squadron Held at  Graf Ignatievo Air Base

Graf Ignatievo, South Central Bulgaria, April 30 (BTA) - For two
 weeks ending this Thursday, Bulgaria hosted a bilateral flying
exercise with the participation of the 122nd Fighter Squadron of
 the United States' Louisiana Air National Guard. This was the
first out of three exercises with a US squadron at the Graf
Ignatievo Air Base this year.

In an interview for BTA, the Commander of 3rd Air Base in Graf
Ignatievo, Brigadier General Ivan Lalov, explained that the
exercise consisted of joint flights during which the Bulgarian
pilots performed various tasks, such as finding the enemy in the
 air, acting against them, conducting air fights, and protecting
 sites on Bulgarian territory from other air forces' attacks.
 
This was the 20th bilateral exercise in the last ten years
between the air forces of Bulgaria and the United States and, in
 the words of General Lalov, almost there are no longer any
differences in the approaches and actions they perform in the
air.
   
The exercise also included flight exchanges: US pilots flew in
the second cabin of MiG-29, and Bulgarian pilots in the F-15 jet
 trainer, he said. In his words, the United States service
members are amazed that the MiG-29 still has something to
surprise them with - they were delighted most of all by the
maneuvering capabilities of the aircraft.

It is no secret that the Bulgarian Air Force's aircraft in good
working order are not enough, General Lalov went on to say. This
 is why the military duty is carried out by a limited number of
pilots and their workload is tremendous, particularly since the
same pilots participated in the exercise, he commented. "The
number of aircraft we have is enough but we fly with a small
part of them because we lack financial resources to put them all
 into service," he noted.

The US pilots took part in the exercise with eight aircraft, of
which two jet trainers and two fighter jets, and Bulgaria
participated with four MiG-29, General Lalov said. 
         
The next bilateral exercise will be Thracian Eagle 2, followed
by Thracian Star 2015, which is a more large-scale exercise - to
 participate are one US squadron, the Polish Air Force with two
fighter aircraft, as well as Greece and Romania, which will not
stay in Bulgaria but fly over from their territory, General
Lalov explained.