Red Flag at Nellis AFB, Nevada

My first Red Flag experience was a good one. It was cool flying into Nellis Air Force Base for the first time the weekend prior to the exercise kicking off and seeing all the jets sitting on the ramp, not only from the USA but from foreign ally countries as well...the ramp alone had more airpower than many countries have in their entire country. The first week I flew nights and then switched to days for the second. It was a big deal flying my first Red Flag at night when I had only flown 10 times with the NVGs prior. The night sorties have around 60 jets in the air at one time, and the days are closer to 80. The main thing I concentrated on was not loosing sight of my flight lead...once taken care of, I could then focus on shooting a missile (simulated of course) or dropping a bomb (simulated or for real). I definitely learned a lot throughout the week with the best part being our 4- ship dropping inert LGBs at night with the NVGs. It's the most complex night sortie I've flown, so hitting my assigned target was a good feeling.

The days were more enjoyable due to being able to fly low and fly fast...the nights are more restrictive in that area. Flying 500 ft and 500 knots down low with surface to air missile sights shooting at you along with the red air aggressors looking to shoot you from the air can be pretty interesting. The mountains were in perfect positions sometimes to "duck" behind out of sight of the radar systems. When you're able to do that it's called terrain masking. All that to say, it pays to get a good night's rest the night before so that you're alert and aware of the mountains around you flying low and fast and also aware of what your instruments are displaying. I was part of a 4-ship that dropped 2000# inert dumb bombs (no GPS or laser guidance) from low altitude...money! Not only do you have to pay attention to all the other things, but pulling more than 5.5 g's at anytime would over-g the bomb...just something else to throw into your crosscheck.

The aggressors at Red Flag are made up of both F-15 and F-16 aircraft with the paint scheme above as well as one that's camouflage brown. Their purpose is to provide and air-to-air threat similar to one that we could potentially face in the future. To do so they simulate different Russian type aircraft, since their military equipment is the most widely disseminated around the world.

Overall, Combat Hammer and Red Flag were great learning experiences for me and has helped get us all ready to deploy early next year. It's our turn to share the duties of war soon and we're ready to go!

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Red Flag

Combat Hammer at Hill AFB, Utah

We left for a month long TDY to Hill Air Fore Base, Utah and Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada on 2 August from Aviano. We had three "cells" to fly 16 of our F-16s here for the training, each having their own KC-10 tanker to refuel off of. It was well coordinated with each cell taking off 30 minuets apart in order to rejoin with their tanker over the Mediterranean Sea which had taken off from a different location. The first leg of our trans-Atlantic flight took us to Lajes Air Base, Portugal...it's a small island many hundreds of miles off it's west coast. Our route of flight took us over the Straits of Gibraltar and then on to Lajes. I was in the first cell of 6 Vipers to take off, and soon we were getting our first load of fuel off the tanker. We landed five hours later to rest for the night before making the long flight to the States. The second leg took us from Lajes all the way to Utah...9.6 hours in the Viper is a little uncomfortable, but not as bad as it might seem in the small cockpit. We played some trivia games and a little battleship to pass the time in between refuelings. In all, we tanked a total of 10 times on our way to Utah, so there was lots of good practice. Up until that point, I had never flown across the ocean and had only tanked a total of six times. The longest sortie I had flown prior was about 3.5 hours during a training sortie at Luke AFB. After a total of 14.6 hours in the jet, we landed here at Hill AFB, UT.

The first couple days here in the States we were all pretty beat due the 8 hour time change we were trying to get used to, so we didn't do a whole lot this past weekend other than get lots of rest in preparation for dropping bombs. I had the chance this past Monday to drop two 2000 lb GPS guided bombs called the GBU-31A Joint Directed Attack Munition (JDAM). I had dropped the six 500 lb Mk-82s at Luke as well as the two 500 lb LGBs, but never 2000 lb bombs. It was a site to see these huge bombs hanging off my wings as I didn't my walk around of the jet before cranking. Soon our 4-ship was airborn with a total of 16,000 lbs of bombs between us to go blow up some targets on the UTTR...the same range I had flown on while at Luke during our LFE phase of training. Our plan was to fly line-a-breast and all drop at the same time...it worked great! Hitting the pickle button and dropping 2000 lbs of explosives off of your wing causes the jet to roll quickly toward the heavy wing, so it takes some stick pressure to counteract the weight difference.

It's amazing how accurate the GPS guided bombs are. Our targets were all lined up in a row and our bombs hit all of them exactly where the coordinates said they were. Don't mess with the USA, or you'll get a bomb dropped through your roof into the exact room they want to hit!

I've flown a couple other times this week and had the chance to shoot the gun and all that fun stuff...something I hadn't had the chance to do since Luke. Next week I'll have the chance to drop a laser guided bomb as well. Good times! I gotta get to bed since I'm getting up at 3:45 tomorrow morning for a 7:00 takeoff. Check six!

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Combat Hammer

Combat Ready Wingman (CMR)

This past Monday I finished the MQT program, so I'm officially combat ready! It's a good feeling to be done with that and to fly without needing a gradesheet. Flying is always awesome, but being able to relax a little more makes it that much better.

This past week was a surge week here in the 510th, which just means that we flew a lot more lines than normal. I flew 8 times Monday through Thursday with one of those flights being an out and back to Slovakia to use a range for bombing practice. The other three days were here in Italy with hot pits in between. Hot pitting is when we land from a flight, refuel without shutting down, and then blast off again for another flight. The total flight time for a double turn like that is around 3.0 hours. We've also been carrying Maverick missiles on our jets for training. The Maverick is an infrared seeking air-to-ground missile with a very large war head, and it can track both stationary and moving targets. I hope to get a chance to shoot one sometime, but we'll see what happens. Can't believe I'm getting paid to fly F-16...in Italy of all places. Buzzards Rule!

Anatolian Eagle in Turkey

A week ago we returned from Konya, Turkey after flying for 2.5 weeks in their Anatolian Eagle Exercise. AE is modeled after the US's Red Flag. We flew with the Turkish Air Force and a couple other countries in simulated war scenarios during our time there with the weekends off to do some sight seeing. It was good for me as a brand new wingman to get that experience under my belt. Red Flag with be much more "push it up" than AE was, and I'll be better prepared for it. They had great airspace, awesome low level routes through the mountains (some of the coolest flying I've done...valleys through the mountains were sweet) and a nice practice bombing range that we were able to take advantage of.

Our first weekend was spent in a region of the country called Capadoccia. People have been living in the region basically from the beginning of the world, so there's a ton of history. Noah's Ark even landed on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. We visited an underground city that was used both for self protection during war and to stay cool in the hot summers...the area is mostly desert. The earth isn't solid rock like many places, so it was easy for them to dig tunnels and rooms to live in. We also took a look at some cliff dwellings around the area...crazy to think people actually lived there up until the 1900s. We had lunch in a restaurant that had been carved into the side of a hill with the tables and seats even being carved out of the rock. Our second weekend was spent down on the Mediterranean coast soaking of the rays and relaxing.

I'm still waiting to finish up my MQT program...I was able to get some of the rides during AE, but not all. We've been pretty busy back here in Aviano and there hasn't been an IP available to give me my checkride. It has a to be a pilot instructor that's been upgraded to check pilot. Anyway, I've still been flying a decent amount so I'm not complaining at all. According to the schedule when we left the squadron Friday, I will have my Mission Emergency Procedures Evaluation (MEPE) in the sim on Wednesday and then fly my checkride on Thursday. I'll finally be done with gradesheets for awhile and just be able to fly!

Yesterday I checked out a cool place I hadn't been to yet, called Barcis. It's about a 30 min drive up into the mountains from Sacile where I live and was well worth the time. The scenery was awesome and the lake's a cool aqua color. It was really cold too, but not cold enough to keep me from jumping off a 35' ft high bridge into the water. I went back today with a group from church to grill out and enjoy the area again...which meant more bridge jumping since the guys had to prove they weren't chicken! Things quickly upgraded from jumping feet first to diving...one of the more crazy things I've done recently in my life. I hope every one's having a great summer. I'll get back with you after Combat Hammer and Red Flag.

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Anatolian Eagle, Turkey

MQT Half Way Done...Enjoying Italy!

It took me about a month here in Italy, but I was finally settled in a couple weeks ago with the last shipment of my household goods. It's nice having everything set up and organized in my new place. I've put a pic on here of the car I bought a few weeks ago. Some of the guys in the squadron said my apartment will end up being a place just to sleep here and there since we're TDY or deployed a lot from here. Speaking of that, I'm going on my first TDY next week to Turkey for 2.5 weeks of flying in their "war games" call Anatolian Eagle. After getting back near the end of June, we'll be heading to the States for Combat Hammer at Hill AFB, UT and then to Red Flag at Nellis AFB, NV. I'm really looking forward to all of that as a brand new wingman in the Viper!

My flights here have gone pretty well. I'm enjoying the bigger engine in this jet. It's a GE100 that has about 5,000 lbs more thrust than the jets at Luke had. We do a lot of our training out over the Adriatic Sea, which takes us just to the East of Venice as we fly to and from the airspace...rather cool. Yesterday on the return to base after a 2 v 2 TI/ACM flight, the mountains were the most visible I have seen in my few flights here. It was a perfectly clear, cool morning and the Alps were a sight to see...it's hard to believe I'm flying the Viper here!

I've had a chance to see some pretty cool stuff already in Italy. The second weekend I was here, I hopped a train from Sacile and went to Venice for the day. The city is awesome and very easy to get lost in. It's a labyrinth of shops, homes, rivers and small walkways. I was able to get to San Marco's Square and the Doges Palace pretty easily from the train station, but got a little lost on the way back. It's all good though since there was plenty of new stuff to see. This past weekend a few buddies of mine and I took a 4 day road trip over Memorial Day weekend around parts of Italy. We saw so many places it'd be hard to recall everything, but the main places we saw were Montalcino in Tuscany, Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast and a couple American WWII Memorial sites close to Florence and Rome. Montalcino is known for the best wine in the world, Pompeii dates back to before Christ was born and was buried under the ash from Vesuvius' eruption, Sorrento was just a cool place and Amalfi was a great site to see. The four of us rented scooters and drove about 20 miles along the coast stopping here and there to take pics of the great view out over the Mediterranean Sea. The Memorial sites brought perspective to the job God has given me...it was humbling to see how many guys gave their lives in the war. What some Americans pay thousands of dollars to do we did doing for much less! That's the latest from over here in Northern Italy...I should be done with MQT soon after we get back from this upcoming TDY.

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Venice; Memorial Day Weekend Trip