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Pilots defend Tyndall against 'attack,' hone war skills during 2005 War Day

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. William Powell
  • 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AETCNS) --  Every day Tyndall F-15 Eagle instructor pilots teach dozens of student pilots how to fight and win in combat, yet instructors rarely get a chance to showcase their own warfighting skills against a formidable adversary.

Fortunately, some 1st Fighter Squadron instructors got a chance to test their skills Oct. 28 against the toughest and best trained "adversary" there is - other American fighter pilots.

The event pitted 12 1st FS Eagles and, for the first time, two 43rd FS F/A-22 Raptors against numerous F-16 Fighting Falcons and a QF-4 Phantom II in a mock aerial engagement dubbed "War Day."

According to Lt. Col. Bert Dreher, 1st FS commander, War Day is meant to not only keep instructors' skills sharp, but also to remind them and the students they teach that their objective is to fight and win the nation's wars.

"We often get locked into the training mindset and forget that, at the heart of all of this, we are warriors," he said. "(Instructors) are here to pass on the skills we've learned, but as warriors out there, we have the potential of getting shot at. This (exercise) reminds us that our objective is to fly, fight and win."

Their goal this time was simple - defend a simulated high-value target near Carrabelle, Fla., from hostile forces. When the order was given, two alert Eagles were scrambled from Tyndall's runway to join 13 other "Blue Air" aircraft already airborne: a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Mississippi Air National Guard, 10 Eagles and two Raptors. This marked the first time Tyndall Raptors trained with another weapon system, rather than solely against one. Blue Air's mission was to intercept the aggressor force, or "Red Air," which consisted of 18 F-16s from Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Iowa Air National Guard units, two Stratotankers and the Phantom from the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron here.

"We had to destroy all bomb droppers, or strikers, before they reached their target," said Maj. Tom Kafka, 1st FS weapons officer and event coordinator. "If we let even one striker through, we would have failed the mission. But we didn't necessarily have to kill all the air-to-air jets protecting the strikers."

To simulate a massive assault force, Red Air members could regenerate after being shot, yet Blue Air team members had only one life. This resulted in Blue Air being vastly outnumbered, but that's not uncommon, according to Colonel Dreher.

"We have trained to fight outnumbered at 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratios our entire Eagle career," he said. "Nearly all of our potential adversaries, going back to the former Soviet Union, have outnumbered us."

The Red Air pilots had overwhelming numbers, but their combat tactics were purposely "slightly watered down" as they simulated foreign pilots flying foreign-built weapon systems, said Lt. Col. Don Ross, Red Air commander from the Iowa ANG.

"But we certainly weren't going to make it easy for Blue Air," Colonel Ross said. "We tried to complicate their ability to get missiles into all of us, because our ultimate goal was to get a striker across the target."

Despite the "watered down" capabilities of the Red Air aggressors, Colonel Dreher said fighting against American pilots is the toughest opponent possible.

"They know our tactics extremely well because they practice our tactics when they're in the Blue Air role," said Colonel Dreher. "This is the toughest threat we'll ever face. We know if we can hold our own against (American pilots), then it's a benchmark for how we'll do when it's for real."

The exercise, especially the alert scramble, felt real for the pilots as well as the intelligence officers, air battle managers and maintainers who also participated in the event.

"I have launched alert missions before in Kuwait during Operation Enduring Freedom, but this was faster and smoother than we ever did at war," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Train, 1st Aircraft Maintenance Unit crew chief, who helped launch the alert jets in under four minutes before a crowd of spectators. "This exercise shows we still have the war capability here even though this is a training base, and it keeps us fresh because we are not always going to be stationed here."

This exercise marked the last time the 1st FS will be able to put up 12 jets at a time because the unit is transitioning into a "lean" squadron. As the Raptor becomes fully operational, some Eagles are being relocated to other installations. For this reason, members of the squadron wanted to "go out with a bang," said Major Kafka.

"We wanted to go up against as many aircraft as we possibly could," he said. "The scenario was a potential real-world scenario, and we got the chance to hone our skills in the event we are ever called upon to be in that real-world scenario."

Overall, Tyndall's instructor pilots completed the mission with approximately 22 reported kills, according to Lt. Col. Bill Routt, 1st FS operations officer.

"Due to real-time kill removal difficulties, it is hard to say how successful we were," he said. "However, there would be many MiG stars painted on the Fury aircraft (referring to the number of kills) and some victory rolls over Tyndall if the exercise were for real."