German pilots training in Israel to operate the Heron
Germany has joined the list of countries who are buying the Heron (pictured), Israel's premier unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Worried by insurgent ambushes on its soldiers in Afghanistan and return fire that sometimes kills civilians or local allies, Germany last year ordered a small fleet of Israeli Heron spy drones designed to provide real-time images above a battlefield.Hmmm.
That has brought German jet pilots to coastal Ein Shemer air base for accelerated retraining on the unmanned propeller planes, already daubed with their flag and Iron Cross emblem.
"It's for the need of the ground troops, for our own protection, like convoy protection," said a Luftwaffe (airforce) major, who formerly flew a Tornado fighter-bomber on Afghan reconnaissance missions and could not be named due to military secrecy.
"In Afghanistan it's really hard to compare the good guys from the bad guys. So you have to surveil them a long time."
Israel is a pioneer of combat drones, having deployed them in Lebanon in the Palestinian territories. Heron's manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), says it is also used by Canadian, French and Australian forces in Afghanistan.
Yet the fact Israeli know-how may now be saving German military lives offers up a unique historical irony lost on none.
The Defence Ministry in Berlin declined to allow the Luftwaffe trainees to be interviewed about such symbolism, but one of them described how they took time off to visit the central Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Dressed in civilian clothes while in Israel, trainees on an earlier course stood at attention for annual commemorations in April of the six million Jews killed in the Nazi genocide.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:02 AM
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