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Real Thaw Reporting and Control Center

The Air Force Control and Reporting Center (CRC) is responsible for ensuring the surveillance of the National Air Space and the tactical command over all means - air and surface - assigned to it. In situations of crisis and conflict, it’s the CRC responsibility to take control of the national airspace.

Located at the Air Force Air Command (CA), in Monsanto, the CRC can also act, if necessary, from the Standby Operational Facility (SOF), at Air Base 11, in Beja.

For the Real Thaw 2022 (RT22), the Monsanto CRC (with the code BATINA) and the Alternative CRC (ZANAGA) are activated simultaneously. During the exercise, air policing, air transit and refueling of all the assets involved are the responsibility of BATINA, while ZANAGA guarantees the tactical control of all participating assets.

Bearing in mind that the CRC ZANAGA is activated at Air Base 11, all the training carried out during the year can thus be put to the test during the execution of the RT22.

In this way, all air controllers and other military personnel can be present in all phases of planning, execution and analysis, achieving a global view of the Reporting and Control Center's response capacity in complex and multi-domain scenarios, making it able to face new challenges.

The CRC Zanaga has 28 military personnel, of which 12 are Air Defense controllers and 12 are military personnel responsible for Air Surveillance, which includes aircraft identification, sensor optimization and establishment of data exchange between the participating means. In Batina, there are also eight air controllers dedicated to the RT22.

For this year's edition of Real Thaw 2022, new reinforcements were received, two air defense controllers from the German Air Force, one from the Ejército del'aire, one from the Hellenic Air Force and one from the Polish Air Force.