When the Belgian Air force deployed Lockheed Martin F-16A Fighting Falcons to Vicenza airbase in Italy as part of the "post-IFOR" NATO presence over Bosnia, it demonstrated a change in Belgian Government policy, which, until then, had seen only ground troops committed to the peacekeeping campaign. It has taken the air force's chief of staff several years to convince his political masters that deployment of a limited number of aircraft is far more cost-effective than fielding an expensive infantry battalion.
The decision came as the Belgian air force celebrated its 50th anniversary by implementing what is arguably the most draconian of re-organisations in its history. The demise of the Soviet Union led the Belgian Government to make spectacular reductions in defence spending, with the army, navy and air force being halved in size. Their missions in NATO remain the same, however.
One aspect which the Belgian defence ministry did not take into account in its re-organisation was the fact that aircraft are flown by pilot-officers and, when the service lost the number of officers stipulated in the cutbacks, it was more than it could afford. At 1.3 pilots per aircraft, the Belgian pilot-officer corps has become almost an endangered species. The service is now about halfway through the painful process of reduction, slimming down its manpower from 20,000 officers, NCOs and other ranks in 1990, to the targeted 10,000. Today, it employs 1,302 officers, 5,219 NCOs (most of them technicians) and 3,479 other ranks.
Lt Gen Guido Vanhecke, Chief of Staff of the Belgian air force, himself an F-16 pilot, commands a much smaller force than the one he inherited from his predecessor in 1991. He makes no secret of his unhappiness with the situation, although he is proud that the service manages to meet the Government's new requirement and has remained operational.
He remains an optimist, saying: "We are pioneers, really. We were the first to discover all the problems other air forces are discovering only now. We found the answers before they did."
He adds that the manpower reductions have involved many personnel relocations. "Some had to change jobs. We disbanded two combat wings. We are closing three airbases this year as required, and the 144 combat aircraft we used to put at the disposal of NATO have been reduced to 72." He says that the number of combat squadrons has been reduced from eight to six.
Standard equipment
"On the other hand," he adds, "we have standardised our equipment. We no longer operate two types of aircraft, as we phased out the Dassault Mirage 5s and standardised on F-16A/Bs, which has allowed us to close the Mirage logistic chain. When 42 Squadron, which was our dedicated reconnaissance squadron, was disbanded in December 1993, we took our Vinten cameras out of the Mirage 5BRs." Since then, the air force has bought eight Per Udsen reconnaissance pods in Denmark and has modified 16 F-16s to carry them. "Thus we saved our reconnaissance capability," Vanhecke says.
In the past, the defence ministry has decided against such a policy, as Belgian F-16s lacked the Dassault Electronique Carapace electronic-countermeasures (ECM)equipment which has now been installed
"Today, two F-16 squadrons have been equipped with the Carapace," he says. "They have passive ECM only for the time being, as no funds have been made available to acquire the active part. Instead, we acquired ALQ-131 pods from the USA to provide our aircraft with active ECM necessary for operations. More will be available when the need arises. Today, our F-16s are as ready for deployment to former Yugoslavia as any NATO force's aircraft. It is an operational necessity. If we want to train our pilots for military operations and deployment abroad, then we must do so now under the most realistic of conditions."
According to Vanhecke, the air force wants to deploy a force of four, or perhaps six, aircraft to Italy, where they will join Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16s already deployed there. They will work as a team under the Joint Deployable Air Task Force programme both countries have signed. "We are used to working with them, as Belgian and Dutch units have been flying together in NATO as part of 2ATAF for ages. We will rotate our pilots on a six-week basis, enabling all of them to train over unfamiliar terrain and in potentially hostile airspace. That will be more sensible than letting them fly over the North Sea. It will be the best training we could hope for," he says.
The Chief of Staff has at last been able to convince the Belgian Government that "-flying over Yugoslavia costs no more than flying over Belgium. The only extra cost will be the deployment of a mere 50 men to Italy. We calculated that BFr10 million [$320,000] would cover the bill until the end of 1996. That is peanuts compared to the funds Belgium now spends on military deployment abroad".
HOME-FRONT CHANGES
At home, the restructuring of the air force has seen the closure of three airbases. Koksijde is to become a helicopter base, home only to the search-and-rescue squadron of Westland Sea Kings. There will be no funds to maintain the whole airbase, much of which may be sold. Goetsenhoven and Brustem airbases, now housing elementary flying training and advanced flying training respectively, are due to be closed, and all flying training will be moved to Beauvechain, already home of the Meteorological Wing, which has had to leave its Brussels premises.
The move of flying training to Beauvechain took longer than expected because the ministry-inspired decision, which was meant to save money, has instead necessitated the building of a new infrastructure to house both schools, their instructors and the student pilots. Brustem airbase is another to be closed down. The billions of Belgian francs invested in the base which now has new, hardened, aircraft shelters will become useless as the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets which are based there are moved to Beauvechain at the end of the year. The land will now be sold for development.
Goetsenhoven will become a general-aviation airfield, after a decision already contested by Belgium's environmental movement. Yet Goetsenhoven remains essential to air force training. Vanhecke says: "We will have a continued need for the runways at Goetsenhoven for training purposes. Therefore, we have asked the civilian authorities to man their tower with military ATC [air-traffic-control] personnel that would remain on our budget."
The F-16 Operational Conversion Unit, which was based at Beauvechain, has now been moved to Kleine Brogel. The Beauvechain Wing, Belgium's only dedicated interceptor wing, has been disbanded, although its two squadrons, numbers 349 and 350, have been saved and added to 2 Wing at Florennes and 10 Wing at Kleine Brogel.
Saving the MLU
Not all is doom and gloom. Belgium has joined the NATO F-16 mid-life update programme (MLU), although reduced defence spending meant that funds were sufficient to modernise only 48 aircraft.
Training continues to be of paramount importance. The air force flew a total of 44,000h in 1995, with the F-16s amassing 17,820h. Because of budgetary restrictions, Belgian pilots each fly only 165h a year. This is an improvement, however, over the 130h allowed just a few years ago. Humanitarian missions, which are ordered by the Government, have political priority, and much of the flying today is done by the 11 Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules of 15 Wing at Melsbroek. They will continue to fly until at least 2010 and are the subject of a multi-billion-franc update programme which first gave them new wings, while state-of-the-art avionics and global-positioning-system navigation equipment is now being installed in another BFr1.3 billion programme.
They also receive armour plating to protect pilots and the GEC-Marconi Apollo jammer to protect them against guided missiles. In the meantime, it has also been decided to acquire a twelfth aircraft as a replacement for the one lost in July in a flying accident at Eindhoven, in the Netherlands.
To improve their fighting capability, Belgian pilots routinely train in the use of beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles and of precision-guided missiles (PGM). As the Government felt reluctant to spend money on expensive BVR and PGM munitions, the air force has been allowed to acquire only a small number of missiles for target-acquisition and firing-procedures training. There is an understanding at a Government level, however, that training in modern tactics alone is not sufficient, and that sophisticated missiles are a military necessity.
The Government has therefore recently approved a BFr507 million budget to allow the air force to purchase 44 Hughes AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, plus another eight for training purposes.
In addition to this, there is a bilateral agreement between Belgium and the USA which should ensure that, should they be required, Belgium would receive all the missiles it needed, and under which Belgian pilots are being fully trained in their use.
Source: Flight International
