Air International — September 2017

MILITARY KONINKLIJKE LUCHTMACHT F-16

Restoring full readiness

Lt Col Bok continued: “Until last summer,

our F-16s had been deployed almost

permanently in international operations

for more than 20 years, most recently in

Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. As a result,

our training has been relatively one-sided,

with emphasis on support of ground troops,

because that is what we did most of the

time; but the spectrum of mission types we

are tasked to do is much wider. Apart from

our Baltic Air Policing commitment in the

 rst months of this year, we do not have

operational deployments running at the

moment. This pause gives us the opportunity

to restore our operational readiness in the

full mission spectrum. That is what we now

focus on, both at home and here in the US.

In CONUS and Red Flag, for instance, we

practise air operations that we have not

been able to train enough recently, in an

environment with serious threats both in the

air and on the ground.”

At Davis-Monthan, the Dutch were

hosted by the Total Force Training Center

(TFTC), known as Operation Snowbird when

established in 1975 and widely still known as

that. The TFTC is a 162nd Wing detachment

operating autonomously at Davis-Monthan,

with its own area at the huge Arizona base,

including aprons and buildings. Lt Col

ScottReinhold, TFTC’s commander, said:

“The relationship between the 162nd Wing

and the KLU goes back a long time. Last year,

when we heard that the Dutch were planning

to come over for Red Flag and additional

training here in Arizona, we committed to it.

We try to help out wherever we can in terms

of equipment, arranging airspace, hotels and

so on. In January–February it is always busy

here at Tucson, with several big events in the

area, as well as ANG units coming down for

training. During the KLU’s stay here, we also

hosted A-10 squadrons from Fort Wayne,

Indiana, and Selfridge, Michigan, as well as

Royal Air Force Chinooks.”

Intense  ying

Flying was intense during CONUS 2017, as

DetCo Bok explained towards the end of the

four weeks at Davis-Monthan: “We  y every

day, weekends included. There’s a  rst wave

in the morning, a second in the afternoon and

another in the evening. Each wave sees four

F-16s operating out of Davis-Monthan. In the

past weeks, we  ew an additional four jets

from Tucson in the morning wave. They acted

as opponents, simulating Su-30 and Su-35

Flankers. We initially wanted to combine

two waves per day with hot-pit refuelling in

between, but in the end it did not work out

that way. That did put some pressure on the

pilot side, as we now needed 16 instead of

12 pilots for the daily missions. Fortunately,

Tucson-based Dutch pilots helped us out on

days where we did not have four pilots in our

detachment available to  y in the Red Air role.

The close proximity of the two air bases is a

real bene t, allowing maximum  exibility.”

The training schedule for the  rst days of

visiting unit 2 was nearly compromised by

the 20th annual Heritage Flight Training and

Certi cation Course, held at Davis-Monthan

Both Dutch F-35As seen taxiing at Marine Corps Air Station

Yuma on February 17. Together with Marines, a small KLU

detachment hot-pit refuelled the jets at this Arizona base.

Corporal Jasper Verolme/Dutch MoD

A CATM-9X-2 training missile under the wing of a Tucson-based KLU F-16. The AIM-9X was fi rst used on Dutch
F-16s after an OT&E programme for the new missile in the initial days of the deployment to Davis-Monthan
proved successful.