to make cruise has to complete a certain
number of events. It starts with a week
of lectures back at Oceana with the East
Coast Weapons School [Strike Fighter
Weapons School Atlantic] for each of
the two SFARP phases. Then there are
certain wickets that they will need to
go through.’
Coming to Fallon allows the squadrons
to run the full range of missions, all in
one place. Upon arrival, VFA-103 set
up a temporary operations center in
the Air Wing Fallon buildings adjacent
to the flight line. The jets arrived on
the Saturday and first thing Monday
morning the missions got under way,
starting with heavy weapons. ‘We have
started with laser-guided training rounds
[LGTRs], Mk76s and inert GBU-12s,’ Craig
explained. ‘We also employ live ordnance
here, which is great because we don’t
have access to those types of ranges backhome other than down in Florida, which
is tough for us to reach from Oceana. It’s
also great training for the maintainers,
getting familiar with building and
loading those live weapons.’
Away from home the squadrons truly
get down to work. They have to make
full use of the time at Fallon. In the first
week here they were flying four waves
of missions each day — 14 sorties — five
days per week, sometimes on a Saturday.
‘This weekend’, said Craig, ‘we’re going
to be flying off the coast of California
to shoot some HARMs [AGM-88 High
Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles] and
drop a JSOW [AGM-158 Joint Stand-Off
Weapon]. Not everyone gets to do that
kind of weapons work. Generally it’s
the more junior guys who are going on
cruise that tend to get those types of
opportunities so that they can build their
experience levels.’Above: AG-200
has received new
tail markings
for the 75th
anniversary of the
squadron, which
was formed on
January 1, 1943,
as VF-17.
Below: Low in the
Sierra Nevada,
a pair of ‘Jolly
Rogers’ F/A-18Fs
break for the
camera.http://www.combataircraft.net // July 2018 45
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