Even on the major civil radar apps, the continuous loops of the NATO tanker planes over Poland or the mighty AWACS, the 47 meter long Boeing E-3 for the use of the Airborne Early Warning and Control System, can currently be seen.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said openly that “130 fighter jets of the North Atlantic Alliance” are currently in the air or on constant alert with a focus on the East.
Austria’s air force is now also reacting to the changed conditions that resulted from the drone strike in Zagreb last week: As eXXpress reported exclusively, the operational readiness of the Eurofighter “Typhoon” will be extended until 8 p.m. A 24-hour deployment of the interceptors, which certainly makes sense in this current picture of the situation, is “not possible in terms of personnel and budget,” the eXXpress heard from government circles.
So there are currently five Eurofighters in the “flightline” – five machines are either in the air or as a squad (two jets each) on the apron in acute operational readiness.
“That corresponds to our specifications and our possibilities,” explains Colonel Dr. Michael Bauer that “even seven to ten machines are constantly ready for action” for large-scale security operations such as monitoring the World Economic Forum in Davos next summer.
The “Typhoon” would be absolutely suitable for shooting down a drone flying towards an Austrian city or a misprogrammed cruise missile, the eXXpress learned from a long-time army pilot: “It’s practiced, it works. We can even simulate before a launch when the best time is to keep the risk to the population from falling wreckage as low as possible.”
