Saturday, March 19, 2011

Details on the Rafale mission over Libya


All in all, some 20 airplanes are conducting the first missions over libya


11h00 AM 4 Rafale C (Provence squadron) armed with mica missiles left the Saint Dizier Air base to enforce the No Flight Zone over Libya (UN resolution 1973)

11h10 AM  A patrol of 2 more Rafale B with a Reco-NG pod left the Dizier Air base for a recce mission over Libya.

02h30 PM 2 mirage 2000D (Ardennes squadron / Nancy Air Base) escorted by 2 mirage 2000-5 (Cigognes squadron / Dijon Air Base) as well as 2 Rafale with AASM bombs rejoin Libya for CAS operations

Other air assets taking part in this first day : 6 French Boeing C135 (Bretagne squadron) and 1 E-3F from Istres and Avor Air bases.

EA-18G Growler with their 2 ALQ-99 jaming pods ready  to take off
American EA-18G Growler have also been seen on an Italian Air base and will take part in the SEAD operations.









At 05h45PM, the French MoD revealed that one of those fighters shot at a military Libyan vehicule.
Edit 1 : Qatar TV, Al Jazzeera is reporting that at least 4 Libyan tanks would have been detroyed by French fighters.
Edit 2 : It is now confirmed that a Rafale B from the Gascogne squadron has attaked a Libyan tank column with its AASM bombs detroying 4 of them.

French fighters engaged in the first stage of the operations over Libya


Source: Press conference of the French defense Ministry.
BBC News
Thanks to Tmor for additional info ;)

1 comment:

  1. This would be interesting.

    Thanks for sharing the update.

    ReplyDelete