From 14 to 25 June 2004, NATO organized exercise ‘Clean Hunter’. One of the participating airfields in this exercise was Büchel Air Base in the German Eifel. The Polish Air Force deployed 5 Sukhoi SU-22Ms fighter bombers from 40 Eskadra Lotnictwa Taktyczneog(40.ELT) from Swidwin AB in Northern Poland to Büchel AB. We visited Büchel on Wednesday 16 June 2004 to capture the participating local Tornadoes from JBG-33 and the visiting Polish SU-22s.

Clean Hunter
This annual exercise focuses on coordinated allied air operations over Western Europe. Air forces from Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States took part in this years’ exercise. Clean Hunter involves many different types of aircraft. It is being run concurrently with and is linked to other land and sea exercises, allowing for joint planning and operations to be practiced.
The exercise areas extend from mid-France to Denmark and from the United Kingdom to mid-Poland. Participating nations will mainly fly from their home bases, except for those nations deploying aircraft into Northern Europe.
Clean Hunter was organized from 1999 to 2005. In 2006 Clean Hunter was replaced by the annual Brilliant Arrow exercise.