Israel hosts its largest-ever international air force exercise. Until November 3rd, local media reports. Not far from where the Russian Airbus 321 flight crashed. Tragic coincidence?

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Photo essay / Drill aims to test the mettle of the men and women at the controls, rather than the technical capabilities of their fighter jets

Israel hosts its largest-ever international air force exercise

Israeli, American, Greek, and Polish air personnel square off against a fictional enemy state in two-week drill

By Judah Ari Gross October 30, 2015, 12:53 am 46

Israeli and foreign fighter jets fly in formation through cloudy skies over the Negev desert during the ‘Blue Flag’ exercise at Ovda Airfield near Eilat on October 27, 2015. (Israeli Air Force)

  Air forces from around the world have gathered deep in the Arava desert in the south of Israel for the past week and a half to take part in the largest aerial exercise in the history of the Israeli Air Force. The “Blue Flag” exercise, which is continuing through November 3, pits the Israeli Air Force, the United States Air Force, Greece’s Hellenic Air Force and the Polish Air Force against a fictional enemy state, the captain in charge of all IAF exercises told The Times of Israel Thursday night. A number of other countries, including Germany, also sent pilots and officers to observe the exercise, but did not take part. This joint drill is the second “Blue Flag” exercise; the first took place in 2013 and was the largest multi-lateral exercise the IAF had ever hosted. The various air forces collaborated closely through every step of the current exercise, the IAF captain said, from planning to execution and finally to debriefing.







 Though the exercise began on October 18, planning for it started nearly eight months ago, the Israeli official said, with an IAF representative contacting each participating country and initially asking, “What do you want to train for?” Those requests came together to form the plan for “Blue Flag,” which sent Israeli and American F-15 squadrons, along with Israeli, Hellenic and Polish F-16 squadrons, flying through nearly all of Israel’s air space, firing simulated weapons against fictional enemy missile launchers, convoys and aircraft, he said.


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Israel hosts largest-ever intl air force drill, pitting troops against fictional enemy

Published time: 30 Oct, 2015 14:56

© Israeli Air Force / Flickr

Israel is hosting its largest-ever international air force exercise. The two-week 'Blue Flag' drill features Israeli, American, Greek and Polish troops in a battle against a fictional enemy state.

The Blue Flag drill consists of Israeli and American F-15 squadrons, as well as Israeli, Hellenic, and Polish F-16 squadrons flying through Israeli airspace while firing simulated weapons against fictional enemy missile launchers, convoys, and aircraft, the Israeli Air Force captain in charge of the exercise told the Times of Israel.

© Israeli Air Force / Flickr

However, the captain said the exercise is designed to test the capabilities of the troops involved, rather than the military equipment itself. “We wanted it to be challenging for the airmen, rather than for the machines,” said the IAF captain, who could not be named due to security reasons.

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The following maps are presented  simply to put the sheer proximity  of the  military exercises and the  Russian Airbus A321 crash.

Russian Airbus A321 Crash – Can Putin Feel What Malaysians & Dutch Felt?

However, the Egyptian government has rubbished that the plane was shot down by missile. The Russian concluded that the Russian Airbus A321 that crashed in the Sinai broke up in mid-air at 36,000-feet. The plane had been heading from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to the Russian city of St Petersburg before the crash.

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CULTUREEL WOORDENBOEK

Suez-crisis map of Troop Movements

Suez-crisis

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Euroflights.info

Eilat with airports

Eilat Israel Port On a Map

 

Eilat is the southernmost city in Israel. Eilat is located on the Red Sea and is an important port for Israel and a popular resort town

Ovda Airport

Ovda Airport is located 45 km to the north from Eilat.

King Hussein International Airport, Jordan

King Hussein International Airport is located 10 km to the north east from Eilat.

The Supreme Court upheld the centuries-old tradition of offering prayers at the start of government meetings

Supreme Court upholds prayer at government meetings

Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

On November 6, 2013, the Court heard oral arguments in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway dealing with whether holding a prayer prior to the monthly public meetings in the New York town of Greece violates the Constitution by endorsing a single faith.

by Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

Posted on May 5, 2014 at 9:13 AM

Updated today at 9:13 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the centuries-old tradition of offering prayers at the start of government meetings, even if those prayers are overwhelmingly Christian.
The 5-4 decision in favor of the any-prayer-goes policy in the town of Greece, N.Y., avoided two alternatives that the justices clearly found abhorrent: having government leaders parse prayers for sectarian content, or outlawing them altogether.
It was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, with the court's conservatives agreeing and its liberals, led by Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting.
The long-awaited ruling following oral arguments in November was a victory for the the town, which was taken to court by two women who argued that a plethora of overtly Christian prayers at town board meetings violated their rights.
While the court had upheld the practice of legislative prayer, most recently in a 1983 case involving the Nebraska legislature, the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway presented the justices with a new twist: mostly Christian clergy delivering frequently sectarian prayers before an audience that often includes average citizens with business to conduct.
The court's ruling said that the alternative -- having the town board act as supervisors and censors of religious speech -- would involve the government far more than Greece was doing by inviting any clergy to deliver the prayers.
"An insistence on nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer outlined in the court's cases," Kennedy said.
Kagan, joined by the court's other three liberal justices, said the town's prayers differed from those delivered to legislators about to undertake the people's business. In Greece, she said, sectarian prayers were delivered to "ordinary citizens," and their participation was encouraged.
"No one can fairly read the prayers from Greece's town meetings as anything other than explicitly Christian -- constantly and exclusively so," Kagan said. "The prayers betray no understanding that the American community is today, as it long has been, a rich mosaic of religious faiths."
The legal tussle began in 2007, following eight years of nothing but Christian prayers in the town of nearly 100,000 people outside Rochester. Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, a Jew and an atheist, took the board to federal court and won by contending that its prayers – often spiced with references to Jesus, Christ and the Holy Spirit -- aligned the town with one religion.
Once the legal battle was joined, town officials canvassed widely for volunteer prayer-givers and added a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and a member of the Baha'i faith to the mix. Stephens, meanwhile, awoke one morning to find her mailbox on top of her car, and part of a fire hydrant turned up in her swimming pool.
The two women contended that the prayers in Greece were unconstitutional because they pressured those in attendance to participate. They noted that unlike federal and state government sessions, town board meetings are frequented by residents who must appear for everything from business permits to zoning changes.

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