The Southern African Development Community´s (SADC) air forces assembled at Air Force Base Makhado outside Louis Trichardt last week for a multinational humanitarian relief exercise, codenamed Blue Cluster.

This exercise started on Saturday, August 20, and was concluded with a media briefing last Wednesday.

“This exercise stems from a SADC Standing Aviation Committee meeting which was held in Maputo, Mozambique, where it was decided to hold a bi-annual exercise with the primary objective of developing and improving regional co-operation in the field of humanitarian support operations amongst all SADC air forces and air wings,” explained the South African Department of Defence in their media statement.

The exercise saw participating nations South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia executing a simulated humanitarian relief operation on the borders.

Zimbabwe’s air force provided one AB412 helicopter, two K8 jet fighters and a CASA 212. South Africa provided eight planes, including Hawks and Grippens, and Botswana 10. Angola provided a sector control centre and five static radars, among other equipment, while Zambia and Mozambique pledged their human resources to the exercise. In all, approximately 146 members from all the countries participated.

Exercises included humanitarian relief, testing and evaluating command and control systems, as well as interoperability among various elements of the air forces and air wings.

Appointed commander of the project Col Schalk van Heerden described the project as a success and said that this will be the first of many exercises to follow.

“Now we have established that we have the capacity to do something like this and look forward to the next one,” he said.