Two Rides Left...

Two rides left in the course...with things going as fast as they have, I'll be back here in the states pretty soon as an instructor in the jet! I have an out and back flight to Hill AFB, UT tomorrow and one more close air support (CAS) ride on Tuesday. The week after I dropped the live Mk82s, we had a simulated desert deployment down to Gila Bend AAF (auxiliary air field) to give us a flavor for what it'll be like real world in the "sandbox" as it's called. Gila Bend AAF has an 8,500 ft runway and is 45 min south of the base. We use it for visual approaches to take a load off of the traffic pattern at Luke. I realize that Iraq will be a lot different, but it was a change flying out of and into a different airfield that's out in the desert. While there, I had my first CAS flight. During a CAS scenario, there are ground troops (Army, Marines, Special Forces, etc.) in close contact with the enemy and that are in need of some direct fire power on a specific location. We had some Army ground controllers supporting us on this flight as well as a Joint Forward Air Controller (JFAC). The JFAC (also flying an F-16) works with the ground controller and has his eyes talked onto a target that needs destroyed or the position of enemy troops. Once he's in contact with the position of interest, he's cleared in hot and marks it with smoke rockets. That's where we come into play...we are then cleared in on the marked target and either strafe it with our gun, or drop some bombs. We were dropping training bombs (BDU-33s) on this flight. It was really cool to see how the whole process works and realize that I may be called on someday in the future to save some of my military bros on the ground.

At the end of the program, we fly in what they call a Large Force Employment (LFE). I flew in one this past Monday up to the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), and then in another local one on Friday. It's where everything we've been learning over the past 5 months comes together into a big simulated mission into "bad guy" territory. For the LFE to the UTTR, we took 14 F-16s from Luke to destroy four different targets. Providing red air support were four F-18 Super Hornets from CA simulating Russian Mig-29's. We also had two tankers giving us gas before the fight. You can already see there's a lot of coordination and planning that goes on for an exercise like this. The day before each LFE is spent in the planning room with about eight guys working to bring everything together under the direction of the Mission Commander. The UTTR LFE I flew in was 3.5 hours from gear in the well until touch down, so that was about 2.5 times longer than the usual sortie. The flight up and back was awesome with great scenery. The Grand Canyon is incredibly huge from both the air and the ground...I could hardly believe how far it stretched! Once in Utah, the mountains were covered with snow and shot up pretty high. During our fight there were times we flew below the snow covered peaks. We could also see the Great Salt Lake just to the north of our airspace. I'll be seeing some more of the awesome mountains around Salt Lake City tomorrow.

Our LFE this past Friday was a little smaller, but not my much. It included 10 F-16s with six F-15C Eagles providing our red air support again simulating Mig-29s. Since it was a local flight, there were no tankers needed. I actually got to see a couple Eagles up close during the fight...my flight lead and I shot them both! Later on as he and I were leaving the fight due to our gas being low, an Eagle rolled in behind me and shot me up pretty good. But, it didn't count at that point because of our gas...in real life it would have though. The LFEs were a great experience as a young fighter pilot! It was only a glimpse of what a Red Flag Exercise at Nellis AFB, NV will be like someday. Those exercises include close to 75 airplanes in a mass "war." Looking forward to it!

The end of next month I have a ton of family and friends heading out here for my graduation, so I'll be sure to take some pics and fill everyone in. Until then, have fun, fly safe and check six!!

Christmas Break...Live Bomb Drop

It was good to get home again and see the fam over Christmas. The last time I was home was July 4th weekend, so it had been a little while. I was able to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in an even longer time and just relax. Of course that meant eating way too much, so I'll be working to shed the few extra pounds I put on over the break. I'll be seeing my family again out here in Phoenix for my F-16 graduation late in February.

My last update, I told everyone I thought shooting the F-16s 20mm Gatling gun was great. Well, dropping 6 live Mk82 bombs off the jet is just a good! We're nearing the end of the program now with only 5 more flights until I'm complete with the F-16 initial qualification course. There are some cool things coming up in the near future that I'll get to in a bit. In the basic surface attack (BSA) rides, we learn the site pictures for different types of dive bombing deliveries that range from 10-45 degrees of dive. From there we move into a more tactical surface attack phase where we plan the low level route and type of attack we'd like to fly against a specific target on the ground. That could be a simulated runway, surface-to-air missile site, a convoy of trucks, etc. The military ranges south of Phoenix actually have fake targets like I just mentioned for us to use on these missions. So, we start off as before flying a low level ingress to a specific target in order to stay low and out of sight. Once through the low level and within approximately 5.0 miles of the target, we climb out of the low altitude structure in preparation to roll in and complete a diving bomb delivery like we practiced in the basic phase. The amount of time from the 5.0 mile mark to weapons release is about 10-20 seconds. Once the bombs are dropped, we immediately fly back down to low altitude. Today, we did just that with four F-16s, each with 6 live Mk82 bombs on board. The Mk82 is a 500lb general purpose bomb which can be modified for both GPS and laser guidance, but ours had neither. I was number two of the 4-ship and had a nice show once I was off target and had a chance to roll up to take a look at the explosions from number one and myself! I thought, "That has to be the coolest thing I've ever done." I know, it seems like I say the same thing pretty much each time I post an update, but today it was definitely true. Shooting the gun is a close second behind dropping live bombs.

The last couple flights of the program are going to be the culmination of many different areas of training we've gone through over the past months. We're planning a mock war scenario, which will be taking place up in Utah airspace against F-18s and F-15s who will be simulating Russian Mig-29s. We will take off out here at Luke AFB with about 14 F-16s, meet a tanker on the way north and then fight the 4-6 "Migs" on our way to drop our simulated bombs on a predesignated target. We'll also be flying another local mission out of here against Marine F-5s. The F-5 is what they used as the Migs in Top Gun. They're somewhere between the size of a T-38 and F-16 and will be tough to visually acquire. I'll let everyone know how the last few rides finish up next month sometime. Oh yeah, as of today I'm academics complete for the initial qualification course here in the F-16!

Next Assignment: Aviano Air Base, Italy

Yesterday was a big day in my Air Force career, and will be having a direct impact on the next three years of my life...we received our next F-16 assignments we'll be headed to after Luke AFB. The assignment process is a little different in RTU than it was in pilot training. This time around, our squadron commander was given eight assignments from the Air Force personnel center. After briefing us on the different bases with their pros/cons, he left it up to us as a class to determine who was going to get what assignment. Since there were a couple of us who wanted the same assignment as our first choice, we ranked each one and then rolled dice to see who would be going where. It was a rather tense time for most of us, seeing as how small dice would be determining a lot for us. But, I had prayed before the whole thing that God would put me where He wanted. God once again totally blessed me and gave me my second choice of Aviano Air Base, Italy for the next three years where I'll be flying in the 510th FS known as the Buzzards! Aviano is part of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). I'm pumped and can hardly believe I'm going to be flying the Viper in Europe. My first choice was Kunsan Air Base, Korea for a year with a follow on assignment to Italy, but that didn't work out for a very worthy reason. Soon I'll be off to Italy, and will be traveling Europe to see some awesome places. The base is located in the northern part of the country near the Alps and about 45 min northeast of Venice. A ton of great places are only a short train ride away, and I plan to take full advantage of the opportunity!

We're obviously in the air-to-ground phase of training now and I'm having a blast. Yes, shooting the F-16's gun is as cool as it sounds! A typical ride in this phase consists of flying a low level as a four ship, hitting the bombing range to drop practice bombs (BDU-33s) and then finish with some strafing. Low levels are similar to those in the T-38, except the terrain is much more fun to fly over and we're doing it at 500 ft and 500 knots (instead of 360 like in the T-38). There are a decent amount of small mountains that make the low altitude flying a lot of fun...it can also make it more dangerous since there are big rocks you could fly into, but a good cross-check ahead of the jet will keep you safe.

Shooting the gun is very awesome...the whole jet shakes when the trigger is pulled! We roll in to strafe a target on the ground from about 2000 ft above ground level and 400 knots. By the time we shoot the gun and pull off target, the jet gets down to around 100-200 ft! That's pretty low in a Viper flying in access of 400 knots. I've been asked if it were scary flying low and fast like that. All I have to say is heck no! It's a total adrenaline rush, and when you can get back in the squadron and find out you had one of the better strafe scores for that flight it's a good feeling.


I have about 14 rides left in the program, and it has gone really fast as it has with other training I've been through. I have a great job and a great Lord who's guiding it all...I'm enjoying a great ride!

Air-to-Ground...Shooting the Gun

We've already completed half of the F-16 FTU training course! I have two air-to-air flights left before getting into the air-to-ground phase on Friday. Sometime this next week I'll get the chance to air refuel at night as well. It's been a lot of fun, and I've been learning a lot. The type of flying we've been doing over the past weeks is something that only time will allow me to get better at. I have a good understanding of my roles as a wingman during the "fight", and I'll get better at executing those roles with a few more hours under my belt. I had a great flight last week, which was a 4 blue air vs 2 red air engagement. We were supposed to have AWACS support, but they fell out for some reason. My main priority was to fly good formation, keep sight of my flight lead (I was #2 of the four blue air Vipers) and take shots at the red air when he directed me to. In a couple years, I'll be the guy leading the 4-ship of Vipers! In the picture below, I'm in the background on my first solo tanker flight.
A couple weekends ago, my squadron worked the NASCAR race at Phoenix International Raceway to raise a little money and help out the track. It was a pretty good time, but for the most part it was a different world. I mean, cars racing fast around a track is cool and all, but I'm not a dedicated fan or anything...different class of people. But hey, the world would be boring if we were all the same.

On another note, the 63FS is the next in line to get follow on assignments after training. Where would I like to go you ask? Well, if there's an assignment to Korea for a year with a follow on to Hill AFB, UT I'd probably try for that. Going to Germany or Italy is also up there on my list...we'll see what the assignment drop is like before I get too set on what I want. We've been told that we should know before Christmas, so we'll see. I know God has it all under control, so I'm not going to lose much sleep over it. I'll be flying the Viper no matter what. I'll get back to you all when I get a chance to fire the gun and strafe some targets out in the desert somewhere...I'm pretty sure that's this coming Friday!

"Break right, Bogey your 6 o'clock, 1 mile, slightly high!"

The air-to-air phase of training is sweet, and we're only about two weeks away from finishing and getting into the air-to-ground stuff. A little over a week ago, I had the most fun flight next to my solo flight in the Viper. It was an Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) flight as a 3-ship formation. It's the first flight where I felt that we were actually getting into the full up real thing of dog fighting as a team against the "enemy." My flight lead and I were "blue" air (the good guys) and #3 of the formation was "red" air (the single bad dude). Once up in the MOA we did a couple hard turns to test our bodies against the high g's we'd be experiencing on this flight. Everyone was feeling good, so we headed right into the fighting. I moved into my wingman position of 9,000'-12,000' at either lead's 3 or 9 o'clock and flew about 1,000' above his altitude. In this position I could check his 6 and keep my nugget on a swivel looking for red air and not worry so much about hitting him. Red air would fly around wherever he wanted to behind flight lead and I at about 1.5-2 miles, +/- 2,000' or so of our altitude in preparation to engage one of us. "Viper 1 ready, Viper 2 ready, Bogey ready" was called on the radio once in position and ready to fight. If you had been listening to the radios during our fights, this is what a typical engagement would have sounded like: "Viper, fights on! Viper 1, break right, Bogey your 6 o'clock, 1 mile, slightly high/low...Viper 1, tally one...Viper 1 engaged...Viper 2 supporting...Viper 1, merged hostile F-16...Viper 2, fox II/III...Vipers, bugout 150, Viper 2, kill hostile F-16, right turn,15 thousand, Viper 2...Viper 1 blind...Viper 2 is your right 3 o'clock, slightly low for 2 miles...Viper 1 visual." The break turn is a full up 9 g turn while putting out flares to defeat a IR missile shot. During all of this, I'm having to keep site of the two jets as they fight, fly my jet in such a way to lock up the bad guy with my radar and then shoot him without my flight lead being in the way...there's a lot going on. I'm sure the radio comm sounds like gibberish to most of you, but it's very important during a fight to keep it quick and precise. There are AF regulations that specify exactly what should be said during an engagement and when so a lot of time has to be spent studying it. I still jack it up sometimes, but it's getting better. The time between each of those calls will also vary in length depending on what's taking place in the fight at the time. The flight was an awesome flight to end the week on...the bigger picture of all our training is making more sense!

A few weeks ago, my flight commander left for his new assignment as the opposing solo on the United States Air Force Thunderbird demonstration team. I think that's pretty awesome, and could potentially see myself doing the same thing in the future if the opportunity presented itself. We're hoping to get up the Nelis AFB, NV as a class sometime in the next couple months to check the Thunderbirds out as well as some of the other cool stuff they have there at the base. I'll keep flying high and having a great time until the next post!