The Real Club Náutico de Arrecife will host the celebration events for the 50th Anniversary of Air Surveillance Squadron No. 22 (EVA 22) next Friday, November 5th, and Monday, November 8th. It was created on April 3, 1971, and is located in Peñas del Chache, in Haría, 672 meters above sea level.
The program will begin this Friday at 7:30 p.m. with a conference on the “Aerospace Surveillance and Control System of the Air Force,” and the speaker will be Division General Juan Francisco Sanz Díaz, head of the Aerospace Surveillance and Control system.
On Monday the 8th, the Aerospace Day begins at 09:00 with the Aerospace Surveillance and Control Seminar.
The activities will conclude on the afternoon of the same Monday at 17:30, first on Playa del Reducto with an “Exhibition of the Air Force Parachute Patrol (PAPEA).” Later, at 18:30 in the Parque Islas Canarias, the “Concert of the Music Unit of the Canary Islands Air Command” will take place.
Air surveillance squadron
Spain has an extensive network of radars that monitor its airspace day and night. This equipment operates from the so-called Air Surveillance Squadrons (EVA) of the Air Force, located in up to 13 strategic points in the geography of the Iberian Peninsula, and also in the Canary and Balearic Islands, which allow the immediate detection and identification of any possible threat to security coming from the air.
In Lanzarote is the EVA 22, which is headed by the commander and head of the facilities D. Francisco Delgado Sánchez. It was created on April 3, 1971, and is located in the Peñas del Chache – Haría at an altitude of 672 meters.
These centers are nourished by the information captured by the thirteen squadrons: EVA of which the Canary Islands has two, EVA 21 of Pozo de las Nieves (Gran Canaria) and EVA 22 of Peñas del Chache. The facilities create a kind of invisible mesh that covers the entire airspace. They are responsible for early warning. No aircraft enters Spain without them detecting it.
The most characteristic element of these units is its radome, a dome of 17 meters in diameter in most cases white or grayish, visible on clear days from tens of kilometers, which protects the antennas of the radars from the weather. All are located on elevations of the terrain, in some cases, on peaks, on the peak of the Nieves of 1,956 meters. From their privileged positions they watch the air without rest: 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In each one works a detachment of around fifty soldiers of the Air Force, responsible for the operation of the radar and to ensure the safety of the facilities. The main infrastructure is a building with characteristics similar to a bunker where the radar is, the systems that serve it, the communication systems and the facilities where the military do their daily work.
The beginning of these detachments goes back to the 60s of the last century. The first ones were installed in collaboration with the United States Air Force (USAF), after the Madrid Pacts between the US and Spain.
