As part of "Jackal Stone," the largest exercise for special operations forces in Europe, three Bell-Boeing CV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft were moved from their home base at Mildenhall in England to Grafenwoehr in September 2014. Led by the United States Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR), members from special operations units from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Finland, Great Britain, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United States participated. The objective of the exercise is to learn and coordinate operational principles, techniques, procedures and tactics among special operations units from different armed forces.
On 10.09.2014 I was able to watch two of the impressive aircraft taking off from the airfield of the Grafenwöhr military training area. After the turbines had already been running on the ground for over an hour, the first CV-22 finally took off. You can see it well in the following series of pictures: The tilting of the rotors forward with increasing speed.
