Indians fly along road for Golden Eagle

The following is a rough translation from an Afrikaans article that appeared in Beeld:

It took the Indian airforce almost ten flight hours with six Mirage 2000 fighters for the airforce's first international excercise with South African fighter squadrons.

During this time, the three support and inflight-refuelling aircraft had to refuel the Mirages six times.

'It is not a joke for a fighter pilot to sit in a cramped cockpit for so long' Air Commodore Randir Pratap, head of air operations in the Indian airforce, said at hoedspruit.

'We wanted to sgow how good our pilots were under the circumstances.'

The Mirages participated in the Africa Aerospace and Defence weapons show in Centurion, then participated in Operation Golden Eagle, the (South African) airforces annual force evaluation excercise.

The German airforce participated in the excercise with two C-160 Transall transport aircraft. This is the first time that the excercise has included such a multinational nature and according to Col. Anton van Rooyen, operational coordinator at AFB Hoedspruit, it is hoped the the participation will increase in the future.

Last week, the Indian Mirages were the 'friendly' force against the South African 'enemy' force in an excercise to secure peace in a neighbouring country that was in the hands of a 'rebel force'.

Altogether, 21 fighter aircraft and 13 support aircraft took part in last weeks Golden Eagle excercise.

According to Van Rooyen, is is planned to hold a multi-national excercise every two years - to take place at the same time as the weapons show.