On 23 January, President of Latvia Egils Levits visited Lielvārde military airfield to inspect the new Black Hawk helicopters delivered to Latvia from the United States at the end of last year.
‘Helicopters arrived last December, greatly enhancing our air force capabilities. This model is also suitable for civilian protection, for example, to fight fires or rescue people. We have highly-competent air force. Personnel is well-trained and keeps capacity of armed forces at a high level, constantly improving military and civilian defence capabilities. We will hand the previous units over to Ukraine – they will find a good use for them,’ President of Latvia underlined after the presentation and conversation with Latvian Air Force pilots.
President also inspected locally-manufactured ‘Tarragon’ planes that are used during routine training of pilots. ‘Purchase of planes from other countries is time-consuming. It is nice to see Latvia having sufficient engineering prowess to manufacture a plane that is considered one of the best in its category. We feel really proud of our engineers,’ Egils Levits said.
