Rogues Cup 2021
This Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace (AAE, French Air and Space Force) training exercise has been held annually since 2016.
The exercise is held in the month of June and is one of the most difficult and complex exercises for the AAE and also a difficult test for the participants. Especially for the Blue team team as it has to maintain the title on one hand, whilst on the other hand they have to show strong evidence of the ability to lead air defence operations to protect French airspace from multiple air invasions with different kind of threats. The Rogue Cup exercise is an interesting framework to raise the spirit of competition among the participating units.
The training scenario lasts for about an hour and a quarter. Twelve aircraft of the Blue Squadron must defend the area of operations represented in the Golfe de Gascogne (Bay of Biscay), supported by early warning and command aircraft and refueling aircraft against fourteen fighters from the Red Squadrons.
The Red Squadron consists of various types of aircraft that are rushing to attack the area of operations multiple times. To gain the momentum they need to outperform the defenders with help from the Marina centres de détection et de contrôle (CDC, Detection and Control Centre) at Mont-de-Marsan.
For the second year in a row, the Rafales from Escadron de Chasse 3/30 Lorraine (EC03.030) based at Base Aerienne 118 Mont-de-Marsan retained the title after outperforming the Mirage 2000Ds from Escadron de Chasse 3/3 Ardennes (EC03.003) based at Base Aerienne 133 Nancy/Ochey in 2020.
This year's participants were:
Also a small video was made by the AAE. If you have information on the participating aircraft, Scramble magazine would love to know this. Please send the info to
Photos by Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace