Photo By Staff Sgt. Kelsey Owen | A U.S. Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon assigned to the 79th Fighter Squadron...... read more read more
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SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. – Six thousand feet in the air, the world seems calm.
Clouds hang lazily in the sky, sometimes drifting across the glare of the sun, and no other soul is around for miles.
Then, a voice speaks from the radio.
“Aircraft 15 miles north of Andrews, South Carolina. This is an armed defense fighter - you are approaching a flight restricted area. Identify yourself and state your intentions.”
Thankfully for this particular aircraft, it is piloted by members of the Civil Air Patrol who are participating in a North American Aerospace Defense Command training exercise with U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons assigned to the 79th Fighter Squadron out of Shaw Air Force Base.
“You feel like a sitting duck,” said CAP Col. James Brogan, CAP South Carolina Wing commander, as he recalled his experience during the training mission. “You have a high-performance F-16 headed your direction, they’ve called you on the radio - that can put you on edge. They come right alongside you, they rock their wings, they’ll pop flares to get your attention. Then they’ll climb and fly across the front of you. For any civilian aviator, that maneuver would absolutely get their attention in a very shocking way.”
NORAD employs a graduated approach to dealing with aircraft that violate restricted airspace. If communication with the pilot or aircraft cannot be established, NORAD may deploy fighter aircraft to investigate and safely escort the aircraft out of the restricted area. The fighter jet will rock its wings to gain the pilot's attention. If this fails, the fighters may perform a "head-butt" maneuver, flying directly in front of the aircraft, and may even dispense flares if necessary.
The week-long training exercise was developed and implemented with the intent of preparing pilots of the 79th FS for a potential future role in Operation NOBLE EAGLE, an ongoing air defense mission dedicated to protecting the airspace of North America.
“The extraordinary effort to set up and complete this mission required massive coordination from the South Carolina Wing CAP, CAP National Headquarters, CAP-USAF and First Air Force to ensure its success,” said CAP Lt. Col. Brett Grooms, SCWG mission program manager and Homeland Security Officer.
“Very rarely do we actually accomplish real-world training like this,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Kurtis Noblitt, 20th Fighter Wing chief of safety. “We don’t have the training assets that can properly replicate a track of interest to that degree or slow airspeed. Obviously, we’re used to flying at tactical airspeeds against other fighter airplanes - so when we bring the CAP out here, they give us the unique opportunity to fly against a target that’s doing 79-100 knots, where our typical flight regimens are in the 300-400 and supersonic range. It’s a different experience handling the aircraft that we just don’t get in normal training.”
Throughout the exercise, two CAP-piloted Cessna 182s would take turns flying along predetermined routes towards a ”bullseye,” which was the simulated temporary flight restricted area. It was the job of the 79th FS’s F-16s, under the direction of NORAD, to intercept and divert the aircraft before they reached that area. Though the CAP crews could hear the fighter pilots over the radio, the CAP simulated radio outage to give the fighters the opportunity to practice comm-out visual signals such as wing rocking, flashing navigation lights, deploying flares and executing what is referred to as a “headbutt.”
“A headbutt generally looks like a fighter flying up on one side of the aircraft and rocking their wings, and then flying across the nose of the intercepted aircraft,” said Noblitt. “It is basically a visual position where the operator of the [aircraft] can’t miss them. Every pilot that’s gone through basic pilot training to get their license should have been exposed to the FAA rules on what to do when intercepted by an air defense fighter. Turning across your nose means to follow the fighter because you’ve entered some kind of restricted airspace.”
Missions ran twice a day for the first four days – a morning and afternoon iteration to maximize the training opportunities for the 79th FS pilots – and ended with a single mission to wrap up the exercise on Friday.
“Anything that we discuss in our debrief of the morning mission will be applied immediately to the afternoon mission,” said Brogan. “And that’s the goal - continuous improvement.”
One such lesson was the fact that high-wing aircraft such as those flown by the CAP limit the pilots’ view when looking up, which in turn meant the F-16 pilots needed to fly lower to be in view. The biggest lessons learned, according to Noblitt, were pacing and targeting.
“We are not used to what pacing looks like, intercepting a slow airplane,” said Noblitt. “[The F-16] is a slick, low-drag jet, so at normal tactical airspeeds of 400-450, trying to scrub those knots off to slow down from 450 to 100 is actually more difficult than a lot of people expected.”
The CAP, a U.S. Air Force auxiliary service, often puts their aircraft towards such training efforts when not using them for emergency services such as search and rescue operations or hurricane support. Nationally, they assist in training not only the Air Force but the Army and Coast Guard as well to identify potential threats in the North American airspace.
“It’s been a very valuable experience,” said Noblitt. “I’m really glad it all worked out. The CAP has been great. We hope to streamline some of the funding headaches in the future so we can utilize them for some other unique mission sets or have [this training] teed up for other squadrons.”
NORAD employs a layered defense network of radars, satellites, and fighter aircraft to identify aircraft and determine the appropriate response. The identification and monitoring of aircraft demonstrates how NORAD executes its aerospace warning and aerospace control missions for the United States and Canada.
Operation NOBLE EAGLE is the name given to all air sovereignty and air defense missions in North America. NORAD is a binational command focused on the defense of both the U.S. and Canada. The response to potential aerospace threats does not distinguish between the two nations and draws on forces from both countries.
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.18.2024 09:49 |
| Story ID: | 476498 |
| Location: | SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 345 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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