For its part, the Group 22 fleet is made up of 2 P.3M airplanes, modernized by INDRA and EADS in 2007 and which, despite their seniority, provide the Air Force and the Spanish Armed Forces with unique capabilities, essential in modern warfare, and inalienable to achieve the much-needed superiority in any combat. This School would function until 1956 when the Light Bombardment Wing no. Three years later it would be replaced by the No. 5 Fighter Wing equipped with F-86 Saber aircraft. The Morón base was about to become a temporary shelter for the Afghan asylum seekers who were taken out of the country by the US military. Three barracks were prepared, but they have finally been dismantled as their use was not necessary. The refugees were taken to the Rota base, but the Morón base was ready to react to any setback.
221 Squadron wears on its patch the same elements as those on the 22 Group crest. The last worldwide mission attended by Joint 11 and its Eurofighters was the BAP mission in Siauliai Lithuania, from April to September 2017. year 2018. The primary function of the Spanish fighters, the same thing happened during their stay in Estonia, was to protect the Baltic airspace, operating QRA rapid reaction targets, in the same way as it is currently done in the national territory 24/7. As vital data to review, in this mission the 11th Wing achieved the essential milestone of 1000 flight hours, which indicates the high degree of experience of the 11th Group. The 11th Wing is a fundamental factor in this scheme, through its means, training of its staff and operations. The 11th Wing always maintains its expeditionary capacity ready, to project force and protect, where necessary, the interests of Spain and the international commitments purchased in solidarity with other allied and friendly countries.
Training Center
But apart from being the spearhead of the Spanish Air Force, Wing 11 houses the training center for pilots who take control of a fighter that can cost more than 80 million euros. That is the mission of the 113 squadron, which, apart from training Spanish soldiers, is currently also doing the same with the pilots of the German army and years ago with those of Saudi Arabia. «Since 2006 they have been trained here, in this operational conversion course that lasts seven months. Apart from being a fundamental enclave for combat, the Sevillian base plays a fundamental role in humanitarian goals such as the fight against piracy in the Horn of Africa or the detection of drug and human trafficking. Group 22 contributes to it, the other leg of the air force that is based in Morón. The 71 troops that make up the 221 squadron, operations and support center are the enormous unknowns.
Prior to that mission, the 11th Wing and its Eurofighters attended the worldwide exercise Frisian Flag, which took place at Leeuwarden Air Base. Exactly the same is the most important exercise at the European level in COMAO type training. The emblem of the Rooster, has been recovered for the 113 Squadron as part of the history of the entities that have been located at the Morón base and pride of all the pilots who were part of those units. In 2018, the 11th Wing Eurofighters returned to the Baltic States to once again carry out a NATO Air Police mission, this time in the so-called Vilkas detachment, which deployed over 4 months at the Siauliai airbase and carried out nearly 1,000 flight hours in well over 500 sorties, between training missions in NATO exercises and actual interception missions on Russian Air Force aircraft. Shortly after, in October 2015, the Unit passed a NATO Capability Assessment to C.16.
The motto is a bullfighting expression with which the bullfighter is encouraged to face the bull. It is said that a driver wanted to join Garcia Morato’s Squadron and he was giving him long and excuses for not admitting it. But the insistence and determination of the young pilot was so great that García Morato mentioned to him that until he knew the motto of the Squadron (which did not exist) he would not accept it. The Banner was donated by the city of Manises, where Wing 11 was located, on December 7, 1984, in an act headed by the Chief of the Air Transport Command and 3rd Air Region, Lieutenant General Tomás Juárez Redondo, along with other civil and military authorities. Also in 1992, the P.3 Orion airplanes from Wing 22 of the La Parra Air Base in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) were received in Morón, which would be closed in the first month of summer of the following year, and which they were incorporated as Group 22 of Wing 21.
Colonel Enrique Fernández Takes Office as Chief of the Morón de la Frontera Sevilla Air Base and Wing 11
In the same way, it contributes to the tasks of surveillance of the maritime areas of sovereignty and carries out the initial training and retraining of each and every one of the EF2000 material pilots of the Air Force, all in order to help in the defense of the country and its interests. “For me, the Morón base thinks a lot. Here traditions are respected, shields and badges are maintained. There has been a technical evolution, a notable leap towards being a modern, technological and situationally adapted army. The Eurofighter is a case in point of this. Spain made a bold and expensive bet, which gave a boost to the Spanish industry and which we have then taken on at an operational level”. The departure from Kabul could undoubtedly be one of the most honorable retreats in which the Spanish Army has participated throughout its history.
Contribute militarily to the security and defense of Spain and its partners, within the framework of the international organizations of which Spain is a part, such as the care of peace, security and humanitarian assistance. On July 30 of that year, and after 55 years of operation, the Manises Air Base in Valencia, a historic unit of the Air Force, was finally closed, known for having been the headquarters of Fighter Wing number 1, which flew for years the F-86 Saber and later the French Mirage III supersonic jet, the much loved “planchette”. The 11th Wing, the first Fighter Wing of the Air Force, moves to the Morón Base, which inherits the name, the emblem and the spirit of Manises, and immediately combines them with the traditions of the 21st Wing and the 22nd Wing.
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As part of it, Set 22 brings unique capabilities to air operations that are projected over the sea and from the sea. By adopting this motto for its 221 Squadron, Group 22 molds the words of Temístocles giving them the typical imprint of an Air Force unit, since if in order to dominate everything you have to dominate the sea (freedom of action), first it is imperative to achieve the control of the sky (air superiority). As of today, Group 11 is made up of the 111 Squad, with the radio call sign «dollar», which is the unit’s operational squad, and the 113, with the radio call sign «gallo», the instruction squad responsible for training initial in C.16 of each and every one of the Spanish Eurofighter pilots, and of numerous pilots from other nations. The excellence of the C.16 Training Center, which works with three new generation simulators, combined with high-level flight training provided by a select group of highly experienced instructors, achieves that fighter pilots who receive the «capable for combat» can be incorporated with all the guarantees to the operational squads.
11th Wing Banner
Three birds make up the insignia of Ala 11 and a motto «Sight, luck and the bull» completes it. It is the most modern fighter of the Spanish Air Force and it is also integrated into other European armies. Spain also has the F18 that entered service much more than 30 years ago. A strong historical link and charged with feeling that has managed to relegate the Morón Air Base to a background, to the point of turning it into an unknown for an important part of Sevillian society.
This is the road that leads to the Morón air base, where there are currently 37 fighter-bombers of this model, which it is not difficult to see exercising in the air as long as you frequently travel along this road. Visit the 11th Wing and the Second Air Deployment Support Squadron, entities of the Air Force installed in the Seville military aerodrome. For its part, Group 22 was born in 1962 at the La Parra Air Base in Jerez de la Frontera, although under the name of 601 Naval Air Squadron, until 1972, when it changed its name to the current one.