Princess Leonor Embarks on the Blas de Lezo for Her Baptism with Live Fire

Midshipman Borbón Ortíz boarded the frigate Blas de Lezo this Saturday, docked at the Las Palmas arsenal, to complete the military, maritime, and naval training she began aboard the training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano in January. This training cruise—the 97th since the ship's launch—took her and 80 other young cadets to nine American countries. The Princess of Asturias will be part of the crew of one of the Navy's most advanced ships until July, when she returns to the Elcano, where she will experience her first real combat exercise.

Under the command of Vice Admiral Juan Bautista Pérez Puig, commander of the High Readiness Maritime Headquarters, this exercise will use live ammunition—from missiles to Harpoon, Sidewinder, Amraam, and Maverick torpedoes—in a combat simulation 500 kilometers off the Canary Islands. This is part of Sinkex-25, a war protocol exercise in which the Blas de Lezo will lead a group of frigates, submarines, and fighter jets, involving a total of 1,900 military personnel. Once completed, the Princess will return to the Elcano at the beginning of next month to finish her naval training on July 13.

The frigate Leonor joined has a crew of 210 people, including the embarked air unit, which operates, manages, and maintains the helicopter deployed on the flight deck.

One of the key moments of the exercise will be the controlled destruction of a real ship, already retired from service, which serves as a target in a kind of 'sink the fleet' game. The ship, compartmentalized to withstand real ammunition impacts, will become a sort of floating laboratory to study in real-time the effects of cannons, missiles, aerial bombs, and torpedoes that are part of the Navy's arsenal.

King Felipe could not attend the start of the new voyage of the Blas de Lezo as he was visiting the San Javier Air Base (Murcia), home of the General Air Academy, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Eagle Patrol. It is precisely at this military base where Princess Leonor will complete her military training starting in September, culminating a career that has seen her become part of the three branches of the Armed Forces.

In fact, the monarch took the controls during a flight demonstration of the Air Force's Pilatus PC-21 training aircraft, which Princess Leonor will use during her training.