This image: Low
and fast — the
Arizona training
areas and remote
terrain enable
the pilots of the
Tucson unit to
hone low-flying
skills.
Below left to right:
Lt Col Joost ‘Niki’
Luijsterburg in
his office on the
‘Viper’ flight line
at Tucson.
Getting airborne
from Tucson
International
Airport for a
training mission.
Frank Crébas/
Bluelife Aviation
The Dutch
contingent
works with USAF
maintainers to
keep the ‘Vipers’
in top condition
despite their age.certificates, Dutch maintenance
procedures and everything. Out of
those 10, I have five two-seat B-models
and five single-seat A-models. They’re
MLU [mid-life upgrade] standard, but
they’re officially Block 15 jets that are
comparable to US Air Force Block 50 CCIP
[Common Configuration Implementation
Program] aircraft but without the HTS
[HARM targeting system]. The US Air
National Guard maintains my aircraft
under a bilateral agreement.
‘I have two maintenance liaison
officers and I have one logistics officer.
He runs the spare parts flow from the
Netherlands [as well as anything else we
need]. On the operations side I have five
Dutch IPs including myself, plus three
American IPs. We also have two mission
planners, a simulator instructor and an
administrative assistant. That’s it. That
gives me 12 people from the Netherlands
in total and they are all permanently
based here for three years, during which
time they live here with their families.’New blood
The Dutch contingent in Tucson
welcomes four new pilots every nine
months. ‘With the 10 jets, we generate
around 2,000 flying hours per year of
which 1,200 are for the school,’ says ‘Niki’.
Out of those 1,200, I use about 1,000
for my students, and that includes all
the sorties that IPs are going to fly and
any extra sorties that they need. The
remaining 200 hours are for support
sorties, such as for operational test work.
For example, we undertook SDB [GBU-39
Small Diameter Bomb] operational test
here. We do these types of things here
because of the mostly perfect weather
and the ranges we have [access to].‘The other part of the 200 hours are
transition courses [TX] for people that
come on an exchange tour, F-16 pilots that
ran out of currency, guest pilots or people
that have been away on a non-flying
staff job for a period. I have roughly 800
hours remaining, which are allocated to
operational RNLAF pilots that come out
here. We have four come over to us every
two weeks to take advantage of the flying
environment under their own training
requirements. It gives them a chance
to focus on all kinds of different things
than at home. It also means we export
noise out of Europe. They can fly low over
land here, where as at home they can
only fly low-level over water. Here they
have ranges where they can drop certain
ordnance that we can’t drop at home, so
it’s not just the great weather that we take
advantage of. The weather predominantly
comes into play with the students as they
have more weather restrictions for landing
and we need good weather for most, if not
all, of their tactical syllabus missions. We
have a strict syllabus and a strict [running]
order, so having predictable weather
creates the best continuity for a student
pilot, and the training benefits as a result.
‘We’re a small team with a limited
number of airframes, yet we’re a very
busy unit with a very high output and
limited means.’
Even though the 148th is a busy unit,
the ops tempo remains relatively low
compared with the front-line units back
home, and it’s a predictable model. ‘I know
exactly what I’m going to do at any point
of the month,’ says ‘Niki’. In an operational
unit you don’t know when the call will
come that says you’re leaving on Monday
for three months. Life here is very stable
even though it’s hard work. It’s a good73
70-78 148th FS C.indd 73 20/04/2018 09:50