{"id":503,"date":"2012-06-06T12:48:03","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T11:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rapcon.org\/?p=503"},"modified":"2012-11-25T13:04:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-25T13:04:23","slug":"maple-flag-45-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/?p=503","title":{"rendered":"Maple Flag 45 – Cold Lake – June 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rapcon Tour to Alberta Canada<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maple Flag 45 held in May & June 2012 \u00a0at Canadian Air Force Base, \u00a0Cold Lake Alberta.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maple Flag is an international air combat exercise held annually at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., provides Canadian and international aircrews with realistic training in a simulated air combat environment. The first flying day of the exercise was scheduled for May 28 with the final flying day occurring on June 22.<\/p>\n

The goal of Maple Flag was to bring together the aircraft of countries by simulating a UN air campaign against a highly-capable enemy.\u00a0Taking part in this year\u2019s Maple Flag were aircraft ranging from the Mirage 2000-5, Mirage 2000 D & N\u00a0variants\u00a0from the French Arm\u00e9e de l\u2019Air, the \u201cBlock 52\u201d F-16D Fighting Falcon from the Singapore Air Force Force.<\/p>\n

Blue forces where\u00a0supplemented\u00a0from based CF-18s and the Alpha Jets from Top Aces provided Red forces with electronic\u00a0assistance.<\/p>\n

The “Load Haulers”,\u00a0provided various models of C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, including for the first time the Royal Canadian Air Force\u2019s own CC-130J from 436 Transport Squadron out of 8 Wing Trenton working alongside the French with two C160 Transalls and the RAF with 1x C-130C3A & 1 x C-130C5.<\/p>\n

Air to air refuelling was provided by the Canadians with a CC-150 Polaris and a “first for me” a CC-130H from 435sqn, that had been retro fitted for air to air refuelling, using a palletised system holding all the extra equipment required.<\/p>\n

Ground troops taking part in the exercise came from Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, who where supported by the CH-146’s\u00a0Griffon helicopters from 1 Wing Kingston,.\u00a0Exercise\u00a0was was overseen each day, by a single RAF E-3 Sentry from RAF Waddington, SAR cover was provided by \u00a0CH-146’s Griffons from417Sqn.<\/p>\n

I would like to thank all those crews and photographers who I meet, but a special thank you goes out to the PRO office at Cold Lake for looking after me, at very short notice and\u00a0accommodating\u00a0all my needs.<\/p>\n

Below are just a few “thumbnails” taken during the week. For a more complete album from my Maple Flag experience, then please contact me directly.\u00a0Thank you Paul<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Gate Guard Cold Lake<\/p><\/div>

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48 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

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48 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

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ZH888-C130J RAF<\/p><\/div>

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XV214 C-130C3 RAF<\/p><\/div>

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94-113 F-16C<\/p><\/div>

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631 Mirage2000D<\/p><\/div>

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366 Mirage2000N<\/p><\/div>

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65 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

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62 & 41 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

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48 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

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41 Mirage 2000C<\/p><\/div>

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C-GITA Alpha Jet<\/p><\/div>

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C-GFTO Alpha Jet<\/p><\/div>

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Alpha Jet - late evening<\/p><\/div>

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188937-CF18<\/p><\/div>

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188797 - CF18<\/p><\/div>

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188766 - CF18<\/p><\/div>

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188746 - CF18<\/p><\/div>

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166954 F-18E VFA-86<\/p><\/div>

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166953 F-18E VFA86<\/p><\/div>

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155221 CT155 Hawk<\/p><\/div>

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155218 & 212 CT-155 Hawks<\/p><\/div>

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146478 CH146<\/p><\/div>

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146422 CH146<\/p><\/div>

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130607& XV214 C-130<\/p><\/div>

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130607 CC-130J<\/p><\/div>

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130607 C-130J<\/p><\/div>

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96034 F-16D<\/p><\/div>

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96034 F-16D<\/p><\/div>

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96034 F-16D<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

94113 F-16C<\/p><\/div>

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631 Mirage 2000D<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

631 Mirage2000D<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

366 Mirage2000N<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

65 Mirage 2000C<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

65 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

62 & 41 Mirage2000C<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

48 Mirage 2000C<\/p><\/div>

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188749 - CF18<\/p><\/div>

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166950 F-18E VFA86<\/p><\/div>

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130340 KC-130H<\/p><\/div>

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218 C-160 Transall<\/p><\/div>

\"\"

ZH103- E3 RAF<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rapcon Tour to Alberta Canada   Maple Flag 45 held in May & June 2012 \u00a0at Canadian Air Force Base, \u00a0Cold Lake Alberta. Maple Flag is an international air combat exercise held annually at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., provides Canadian and international aircrews with realistic training in a simulated air combat environment. The first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":772,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rapcon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}