Stéphane Place 11:00 a.m., March 07, 2022

It is from the base of Mont-de-Marsan, in the Landes, that the French Rafales take off which monitor the eastern flank of NATO airspace.

Since the start of the Russian military invasion in Ukraine, daily patrols have taken place to monitor Polish and even Romanian airspace.

REPORT

From the start of the hostilities unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, the French Air Force mobilized its Rafales, deployed as part of the border surveillance mission of NATO countries.

Armed with their missiles, the fighter pilots take off from the BA-118, in the Landes.

These patrols are intended to preserve in particular the Polish airspace, or even Romanian.

The rotations are daily, with each time a patrol made up of two Rafales.

The Europe 1 correspondent went there. 

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"Characterize and identify an unknown aircraft"

The French military does not intervene directly in this conflict, but they do indeed closely monitor Polish and Romanian airspace.

"Food, water... It's good", enumerates one of them.

The flight data, the weather forecast, a sandwich sticking out of the bag: here are the final preparations for these two very concentrated fighter pilots, and already in their bubble.

In a few minutes at the controls of their Rafale, these two soldiers will take off from Mont-de-Marsan, then join in the sky a tanker plane, a flying tank, before heading for Poland.

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Colonel Jean-Michel Herpin directs Air Base 118. "They are in the air to be able to characterize and identify an aircraft which would be unknown at best, or which would be rather offensive and which would enter NATO territory when it is not allowed to. Then there are a whole bunch of possible procedures depending on the reaction of this plane to force it to turn around or to land, "he explains.

Night and day permanence

The fighter pilots of the squadron commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Antoine Courty take turns day and night to ensure that no Russian plane enters the airspace guarded by NATO.

"The goal is to hold an air force on the eastern flank, so Poland, Romania... Our French resources are coupled with resources from other NATO countries, mostly European. But we can also think of the United States, which is also contributing to the effort," he said.

These surveillance missions each time represent 8 to 9 flight hours for the pilots.