Photo By Senior Airman Nicholas Battani | A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon, assigned to the Ohio National Guard’s 180th...... read more read more
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More than 100 Airmen and 10 F-16 Fighting Falcons assigned to Ohio National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing, deployed to Volk Field Air National Guard Base, Wis., in early August to participate in exercise Northern Lightning.
Northern Lightning is an annual training event, hosted at Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center, a joint certified Air National Guard facility, leveraging an integrated, full spectrum training environment with electronic warfare, anti-access and aerial denial specialization for units to enhance their combat capability and readiness.
During this two-week exercise, the 180FW had an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to integrate with joint forces, focusing on air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, dissimilar aircraft air tactics and offensive and defensive counter air, with realistic surface-to-air and air-to-air threats.
“With Northern Lightning, the key factor is the scale of the exercise and that fourth and fifth generation integration,” said Maj. Travis Dancer, an F-16 fighter pilot and project officer for Northern Lightning. “Where both aircraft can do air to air and air to ground so we can use each other’s benefits.”
The ability to integrate their fourth generation aircraft with fifth generation aircraft was a major theme of Northern Lightning.
“The big learning objective here is to use the fifth generation to complement the fourth generation aircraft.” said Capt. Patrick Haugen, an F-16 pilot assigned to the 180FW.
Northern Lightning provides a great training environment for the pilots to test this integration in real-world environments.
“Flying with the F-35, we’re trying to use our systems paired with their systems and see how they complement each other and then testing our game plans to see if they work out,” said Haugen.
Highlighting how the aircraft complement one another was a major objective for Northern Lightning. The 180FW worked with the U.S. Marine pilots to sync the F-16 with the F-35, focusing on the benefits each jet brings to the fight.
“It’s important that we’re in this joint-environment because that’s how we’re going to win the war,” said Haugen. “There’s not going to be just one type of aircraft and working with our Marine partners allows us to train to win a near peer conflict.”
Dancer echoed the sentiments that Northern Lightning highlighted the importance of training between services across the Department of Defense.
“When we talk about the future of warfare, the separation of different branches is going to the wayside,” said Dancer. “I think that is a good thing because assets such as the F-35s from the Marine Corps bring a different avenue to the fight that work well in tandem with our F-16s and the more we get into that joint environment is a necessity because of the future outlook of our adversaries.
Volk Field provided an ideal location for this fourth and fifth generation integration during Northern Lightning. The airspace is much larger than the 180FW uses for training back home, allowing for more open space to train with the F-35s.
“With Volk Field, the major factor is the airspace,” said Dancer. “Up here in the northern part of the United States, we have a lot more airspace that we are able to use, which is really conducive to our kind of training that we wouldn’t be able to get back home in Ohio’s airspace.”
The airspace wasn’t the only factor that makes Volk Field ideal for Northern Lightning. Volk Field is a large base, complete with housing for service members. This allows members of the 180FW, who are mainly traditional guardsmen to live and work together for an extended period of time which is key to improving morale and missions readiness.
“The facilities at Volk Field, with their housing and debrief areas, that we don’t have back home, is a major factor,” said Dancer. “Coming out here allows the unit to come together which is a big part of these exercises.”
Northern Lightning provided the 180FW the ability to test their integration of fourth and fifth generation aircraft as well their joint-training capabilities, enabling the 180FW to remain always ready, always there.
“The experience of a large-scale exercise and the stress that comes with it is invaluable.” said Haugen. “We don’t want the first time executing these tactics to be in war, so we iron out all of these issues together as a unit which keeps our pilots ready for any real-world scenario in the future.”
Due to the tireless efforts of the pilots in the air and the Stinger Airmen on the ground, the 180FW was able to fly more than 146 training sorties, with more than 217.5 flight hours, enhancing the 180FW’s capability to execute their mission in a joint, combat-like environment.
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.26.2024 14:43 |
| Story ID: | 479423 |
| Location: | VOLK FIELD, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 437 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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