Multinational Helicopter Combat Exercise Held in Pápa

The Fire Blade 2025 multinational helicopter combat exercise was held in Pápa (western Hungary) at the end of May with the participation of 300 soldiers from eleven nations. 

Colonel Zoltán Rolkó, exercise director and deputy commander of the Hungarian Defense Forces’ 86th Helicopter Brigade, told the media on site about the two-week exercise:

Five countries—Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Serbia, and Slovakia—provided twenty aircraft, and Slovenia and Belgium also contributed greatly to the success of the exercise.

Soldiers must be able to cooperate with anyone, anywhere, at any time, and this initiative provides a good basis for that, said Zoltán Rolkó. He added that the tasks were planned, executed, and evaluated based on standardized procedures.

The 2025 exercise took place between May 19 and 30, involving rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft from five nations, as well as support assets from three nations.

The aim of the exercise was to improve combat-level cooperation between helicopter units in a joint, combined, realistic, and challenging environment.

The exercise provided an opportunity to support special operations and traditional ground forces in a multinational formation, to apply various delivery and evacuation methods, and to conduct live-fire exercises in order to strengthen the capabilities of helicopter crews in the areas of combat air transport, firepower, mobility, defense, and helicopter cooperation, reads the Hungarian Defense Forces’ statement.

This is the third time that the multinational helicopter combat exercise has been held in Hungary since 2017 and 2022, this time in Pápa,

they said.

Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Vasvári Tamás