Source & Photos; Ejército del Aire.
From October 15th to 31st, the multinational exercise Ocean Sky 2025 is taking place in the skies over the Canary Islands, bringing together aircraft from various countries. This exercise, the Spanish Air Force’s most important training exercise, is testing different air platforms.
This exercise, conducted by the Air Combat Command (MACOM) and led from Gando Air Base, with support from Lanzarote Air Base, involved the participation of the 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 31st, and 46th Wings, using Eurofighter 2000 and F-18M aircraft from the Spanish Air Force. International participation included Germany, Greece, Portugal, India, and the United States, as well as the European Air Refuelling Training (EART) initiative. In total, the international deployment brings together F-18M, Eurofighter, F-16 C/D B50, F-16 Fighting Falcon M, F-15E, and Su-30MKI aircraft, as well as MRTT tankers, KC-767, KC-30M, A-332, and A400M, forming a large multinational force—more than fifty aircraft—aimed at strengthening interoperability and cooperation among allies. Other units playing a key role during this exercise include GRUALERCON, GRUCEMAC, GRUNOMAC, EADA, SEADA, GRUMOCA, CIGES, and the Royal Guard.
The main objective of Ocean Sky 25 is to train air superiority missions in the Defensive Counter-Air (DCA) and Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) domains, simulating combat between large combined air forces. These types of exercises improve interoperability, tactical leadership, and cooperation capabilities.
The first major mission was led by Commander Juan Bengoechea, head of the 141 Squadron of Wing 14, as mission commander. With over 1,000 flight hours in the Eurofighter and nearly 2,000 accumulated hours, Bengoechea entered the General Air Academy in 2009 and, after a stint with Wing 23 as an instructor for the Fighter and Attack Course, returned to Wing 14 in 2022. He currently leads the training of more than twenty pilots. Based on this experience, he emphasized that “the biggest challenge of being a mission commander is integrating the capabilities of all participants, reducing individual limitations and maximizing the strengths of each platform. Launching a COMAO of this size, with so many countries and different aircraft, demands precise coordination and decisive leadership.”
For Bengoechea, Ocean Sky is, above all, an opportunity for mutual learning. “Each edition allows us to learn from complex missions and scenarios with a high number of participants. But we also learn from each other. The transfer of knowledge between air forces is enormous,” he explained. He added: “Representing Spain and the Air Force and Space Force in an exercise of this magnitude is an honor. If I were a foreign participant, I would want to leave with the impression of a professional, cohesive, and generous Air Force.”
The Air Force and Space Force’s Alert and Control Group (GRUALERCON) has played an essential role in conducting the international exercise Ocean Sky 2025. From its operations center at Gando Air Base, the group has exercised tactical control of the airspace during the missions, ensuring the safety, coordination, and effectiveness of the more than twenty participating combat aircraft.
GRUALERCON is the unit responsible for the permanent air defense of the Canary Islands archipelago, a mission it carries out 365 days a year and which, if necessary, could be extended to the rest of the national airspace. Its mission simultaneously serves the national and NATO components, integrating into the Atlantic Alliance’s air defense structure. GRUALERCON controllers are essentially the eyes and ears of the pilots in flight: they provide intelligence on the enemy, assign priorities, optimize the effectiveness of each aircraft, and ensure that all aircraft operate under the same plan…
Another key unit for the development of Ocean Sky is the 802 Squadron, a search and rescue squadron that supports military operations and also conducts maritime surveillance and patrols of areas of interest. To this end, it maintains a crew of D.4 aircraft and another of HD-21 aircraft on permanent alert, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Lieutenant Colonel Jesús Ramos, commander of the 802 Squadron, explains his unit’s performance in Ocean Sky 2025: “We are providing 24/7 SAR (Search and Rescue) coverage for all fighter sorties, both in the main wave and the secondary waves. We have the helicopter ready on the runway for any type of emergency, including those that occur during the night arc,” the airman recounts. . ”, relata el aviador.
During these two weeks of Exercise Ocean Sky, the daily work of the 802 Squadron’s personnel, both flight crews and maintenance staff, reaches its highest level of demand, because “In addition to the exercise itself, we also maintain our usual alert status in case we need to undertake any of our regular missions. This represents a significant workload, but we are happy to do it. ,” Ramos explains, having just arrived at his destination.
