Spain: Harrier jump jet on the Black Sea

With its carrier group in the eastern Mediterranean, the Armada has shown what the actually quite old Harrier vertical take-off aircraft are still capable of in their land attack support role: From the "Juan Carlos I", the core of the Dedalo carrier group consisting of the frigates "Blas de Lezo" and "Victoria" as well as the amphibious assault ship "Castilla" and a further two units, three of the embarked Hawker Siddeley Harriers took off to deliver live 500kg MK-82 bombs to the targets at the Getica land combat training area near Cincu in the middle of Romania, 1,000 kilometres away. Of course, this was only possible by refuelling an A400-M of the Spanish Air Force, which was already part of the Spanish flight contingent of the NATO Enhanced Air Policing Mission in Romania.
(NATO Eastern Flank Security, since 2014) was stationed near Constanta on the Black Sea coast. Six Spanish Eurofighters are also involved in the mission there. At the training area, Spain has also integrated a contingent of marines (Infantes de Marina) into the Romanian battalion under French command, who were certainly happy to take on the tasks of forward air controllers for the Harriers. After all, a strong sign of life for this old aircraft type.