Above: As night
falls, an F-16
student returns
to the flight line
wearing the
daylight-only
JHMCS.
Frank Crébas/
Bluelife Aviation
Left top to bttom:
A crisp echelon
formation of
‘Vipers’ over the
military operating
area (MOA) near
Tucson.
New meets
old — an F-16AM
from the 148th FS
forms up with an
F-35A from the
Dutch operational
test unit at
Edwards AFB.
Frank Crébas/
Bluelife Aviationmissions with a real air-to-ground scenario
where you have to fight your way in, drop
a bomb on the target and then fight your
way out again. I’m really looking forward
to those missions.’New developments
In an interesting development, the
current pilot course at the 148th includes
a Norwegian student. ‘Niki’ says, ‘The
Norwegians normally have training slots
with the USAF here in Tucson. But the
US is suffering from a huge shortage of
pilots, especially fighter pilots, so the USAF
cancelled pretty much all of Norway’s
slots for the coming period to concentrate
on its own requirements. Since we
have a very close relationship with the
Norwegian military, they asked if we could
pick up one of their guys that graduated
from Sheppard AFB, otherwise he’d be
stuck for a long time until they could
find a solution. We took up the role and
allocated a slot.
‘We love our relationship with our
American hosts. Our American IPs are
vital, plus the US maintenance guys
are super-enthusiastic. We have a mix
of extremely experienced maintainershttp://www.combataircraft.net // June 2018 77
70-78 148th FS C.indd 77 20/04/2018 09:50