WEBVTT

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- My name is Colonel Ric Trimillos

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and I am the chief of innovation

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and transformation at USAFE-AFAFRICA.

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We are in Portugal for the European

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and African Partnership Flight,

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bringing together seven NATO countries

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plus, also, Morocco, who are all flying

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or soon to be flying F-16s

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to exchange lessons
learned and best practices.

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These NATO partners plus,
also, having Morocco here

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all fly the F-16 or will
soon be flying the F-16

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and it's about exchanging best practices

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so it will be interoperable

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and finding more efficient
ways to use the aircraft.

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Sure, so, this week brought together

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different F-16 operating units

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from across the NATO and from Morocco

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and it gave us an opportunity to be able

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to look at the organization
of maintenance units,

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some of the best practices on
being able to generate sorties

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and to be able to make
sure that there's supplies

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and logistics in place
in an on time fashion.

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So events like the African and
European Partnership Flights

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are designed to bring partners together

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in order to enhance interoperability

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and to get us ready for
our Article 5 obligations.

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One of the exciting things about this

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European Partnership Flight is

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it's the first time that we've exclusively

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brought together our European partners

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to focus in on the F-16

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and on our partners who are considering

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and looking at buying F-16s.

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It's an opportunity for all of
us to exchange best practices

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and to be able to talk about
how we can do combined defense.

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It is really an honor to have
the Portuguese to host us

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and then to have countries like Poland,

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Romania and Morocco here
sharing their lessons learned

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of flying the aircraft sometimes
as little as three years

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and us much as 25 years
in the case of Morocco

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to be able to share their lessons learned.