Finished The Flight Lead Upgrade

Towards the end of February I finished the flight lead upgrade (FLUG) and am now officially a 4-ship flight lead. This means I'm responsible for leading around the other three jets in my formation of 4 F-16s in case you didn't read my earlier post. The three or so months it took to finish were definitely a learning experience and it's nice to be in the lead now. It's completely different to be the one standing in front and briefing your flight members what you want them to do when the past couple years were spent listening and being told what to do. There were many long days and stressful evenings preparing and studying for the next days flight, as Lana can attest to. A few times she even sat across the kitchen table from me pretending to be a flight member as I practiced my flight brief...she was a great help and encouragement to me; I love you Lana!! Overall, the upgrade went well and thankfully I didn't "bust" or fail any flights...although I came close once.

As mentioned before the FLUG consisted of 10 flights in different areas of the F-16's mission. We start off air-to-air with BFM or dogfighting flights consisting of offensive, defensive and high aspect. From there we moved into air combat maneuvering (ACM) maneuvering together with a wingman to "kill" the adversary...in BFM you maneuver as a single jet verses another. Tactial intercepts (TI) are next where we start beyond visual range (BVR), analyze the formation and range with adversaries are from us, shoot them BVR if they're hostiles or maneuver our two F-16s to a position to visually identify (VID) the "bad" guys and "kill" them without being detected...this flight is typically a 2 vs 4 blue to red. It builds to 4 vs 4 which incorporates everything learned in the previous flights, plus more specifics regarding defensive counter air (DCA) operations. In the air-to-ground area we have a close air support (CAS) flight, which is what our flights in the desert consisted of. Then, our last two flights of the FLUG are opposed surface attack. Essentially we simulate we're part of a strike package (those tasked to enter "bad guy" land and destroy targets on the ground), but along the way there is an air and surface to air threat (surface to air missiles and artillery). So, we combine the air-to-air with the air-to-ground aspects together and execute one mission. All of these flights are very similar to the building blocks I went through in F-16 training.

For those of use who are experienced at the completion of the FLUG (more than 500 F-16 hours) we're put into the supervisor of flying (SOF) upgrade. The SOF is a pilot who sits in the tower and is a direct line between the Operations Group Commander and what's going on with daily flying. We're responsible for setting the weather status, assisting those airborne if they have an inflight emergency and a number of other things. We have two dedicated radios which pilots use to talk with the SOF if they need assistance.

In the squadron I'm now the 510FS Chief of Training, another area of increased responsibility. After the desert I worked in the scheduling shop for about one year, before I was given my new job. I'm responsible for tracking flying and currencies, as well as working with the scheduling shop to make sure those in upgrades are scheduled for the appropriate events. Those in higher positions on base use the numbers we track to gauge how well the squadron and wing are doing in regards to flying, so it's an important job. The picture below is of our squadron scheduling board...it's a huge puzzle every week to figure out every pilot's duties for the week.

Lana and I plan to do some snowboarding soon in Switzerland to take advantage of the good snow while it's around...yet another blessing of being located where we are here in Europe! I'll update everyone on how it was soon.