A check by the gendarmes is announced, and we come across an escort of mouflons. A sign of vast wilderness. On the winding road of Mont Agel, past the Monaco Golf course, visitors become sparse. Situated at an altitude of 1148 meters on the Monégasque slope of a height located on French territory, the Mont Agel Air Base hosts its guests sparingly. Understandably so: this military area houses the Detection and Control Center 05.943 (CDC), an operational unit of the Air Force in charge of monitoring the airspace in the southeastern part of the national territory and its approaches.
As such, the CDC ensures the detection, identification, and classification of all aircraft within its zone of responsibility and controls the air defense interceptors tasked with performing air policing missions. With over 10,000 aircraft per day navigating the French skies, and especially since the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, this Center, one of the five the Air Force currently has, is capable of extending its zone of responsibility to the entire southern part of the French territory in case of technical unavailability of neighboring centers. This becomes interesting when we learn that an aerial incident occurs on average every week above our heads. This fact makes it imperative for the operational readiness of pilots and fighter jets, capable of taking off within a maximum delay of 7 minutes, 365 days a year! With nearly 150 personnel, mainly military, and equipped with high-performance equipment – the three-dimensional PALMIER radar and two-dimensional 23 cm radar with an electronic processing and visualization system Visu V- installed just eight months ago at a cost of 7.6 million euros, the CDC of Mont Agel is nonetheless considering its future, more uncertain after 2012.
How then to leverage “Delta 54”, an area of several thousand square kilometers mainly located above the sea, well beyond the coasts between Nice and the territory of Corsica? In the pipeline, the “Blue Flag” project patiently awaits its turn: a concept derived from its namesake “Red Flag”, an American military exercise involving several times a year allied air forces, the Detection and Control Center at BA 943 could serve as a training zone and cooperation area with the “new” NATO allies, or even with partner countries of the Union for the Mediterranean. The advantages? First and foremost, this perspective would significantly reduce the cost of training missions, borne by taxpayers, for pilots often sent to Nellis Base, in the American Nevada desert or another located in Alaska. It would also signal a strong political message of clear visibility to the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at the very moment when the President of the Republic proudly announces France’s return to integrated military command.
This allied collaboration would furthermore not disturb the environmental requirements of civilian populations since it would take place above the Mediterranean. It could, on the other hand, prove particularly profitable for the economy of Nice, provided that local and regional officials take the trouble to consider this project of national political dimension. From this point of view, the “war” is far from won…
