ETAP-C
European Tactical Airlift Programme – Course (ETAP-C) aims to provide air transport crews with a comprehensive airlift tactics course to enhance tactical knowledge, to expand the personal ‘comfort zone’ in unfriendly scenarios and to increase survivability in this airspace. Since almost all EATF-nations participate in the courses interoperability between European air forces will grow in this domain. Thanks to the effort of the EATC, who designed the ETAP Tactices, Techniques and Procedures (ETTP) and the by ETAC trained Tactical Instructor Pilots (TacIP) and Loadmasters (TacILM) all participating crews operate by ‘the same sheet of music’. The ETTPs are supposed to be the ‘bible’ for tactical flying. On the courses (Single-ship Day, Single-ship Night/NVG, Multiple-ship) crews are trained within a simulated theatre-deployment set up, exposing them to a complex surface-to-air and air-to-air threat. They are continuously challenged to conduct more and more demanding airlift missions, however always being assisted by TacIPs. At the end of each course, graduating crews will be presented a certificate.
ETAP-I
European Tactical Airlift Programme – Instructor Course (ETAP-I) provides to selected European Air Transport instructor pilots expertise and knowledge about different transport aircraft types and their associated mission capabilities, this with respect to the tactical reference handbook ETTP. Calling them ‘students’ on this project, during our ETAP-Cs the graduates become TacIPs and are employed on each ETAP-C. ETAP-Is enable them to assist the crews during their flight preparation and to support them during the execution of their missions. At the end of each flight, TacIPs will evaluate the crew’s performance against the syllabus requirements. Once they are back at home they will pass the harmonised training procedures and their knowledge to their national crews, preparing them already for the attendance of one of our projects or any other multinational event.
ETAP-S
European Tactical Airlift Programme – Symposium (ETAP-S) A symposium had been the first common project within the EATF-programme and is running since 2010. It is still a core activity within the EATF and ETAP aiming to improve fleet capacity across Europe and to improve interoperability of airlift related issues. ETAP-S solely concentrates on tactical aspects of the European air transport domain and it aims for the operator level. This closes the circle of teaching, learning and debating. Tangible initiatives will be to the benefit for consideration by the EATF community.
ETAP-T
European Tactical Airlift Programme – Training (ETAP-T) is an annual training aiming to conduct a comprehensive airlift training opportunity within the European setting. Training objectives are based on national training requirements and activities. The outcome can be called training ‘à la carte’ that has been designed to optimize multi-threat, advanced serials, which are challenging for the operational crews. A backbone of the training since the begin in 2012 is the strong support by the European Air Transport Command (EATC). The project itself runs over two weeks, providing not only training opportunities for aircrews but also for Intel, Maintenance, Combined Air Terminal Operations (CATO), Air Mobility Protection Teams (AMPTs), Combat Control Team (CCT), Tactical Aeromedical Evacuation (CasEvac) and paratroopers. This complementary training is managed by EATC. ETAP-T (formerly EATT) is now conducted repetitively since 9 years. ETAP-Ts have been organised so far in Spain (2012/13/19), BGR (2014) and three times in PRT (2015 – 17) and HUN (2018). The planned editions for 2020 (Pisa (ITA)) and 2021 (Papa (HUN)) had to be cancelled. The next edition is scheduled for Jun 2022 in the well tried and tested Beja (PRT) again. Though this tactical training opportunity is open to any crew, we appreciate to welcome already graduated crews from our courses to watch them employing the tactics they have learned.