I read something yesterday and had a nostalgia attack. There are days I really miss the Air Force!
According to a report in The War Zone, F-16 Viper pilots from Alaska Air Command’s 18th Aggressor Squadron at Eielson AFB near Fairbanks are now intercepting and escorting Russian aircraft penetrating Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), a mission normally flown by F-22 Raptor pilots based at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage.
Based on what I’m reading here, a number of Elmendorf’s F-22 Raptors are deployed to Poland (where they’ve been since Russia invaded Ukraine). In their absence, aggressor Vipers based at Eielson have picked up the mission of intercepting, identifying, and escorting potential threats in the ADIZ. Which is fun, because the aggressor F-16s and their pilots are part of a small training squadron whose main purpose is to provide a Russian-style dissimilar air combat threat for other Alaska aircrews (namely the F-22 crews at Elmendorf and the F-35 crews at Eielson) to train against.
The aggressor Vipers are painted in Russian-style camouflage, complete with red Russian-style aircraft numbers on the forward part of the fuselage. I’d love to see the look on the faces of the Russian Tu-95 crews when these colorful mini-MiGs roll up alongside them.
(Sorry for the crappy little map … it’s the only one I could find that highlights the four locations I mention in this post.)
In my day, the early and mid-1980s, the F-15 was the new kid on the block in Alaska, and we flew the alert missions performed by F-22s (and F-16s) today. We kept four F-15s and their pilots on year-round 24/7 alert at two forward operating locations: two jets at Galena Airport on the Yukon River, two at King Salmon Airport near Bristol Bay. An alert tour of duty lasted a week, and unless we were ferrying replacement jets to the alert bases, we went out and back by commercial air (Wein Alaska to Galena, Reeve Aleutian to King). Except for scrambles, real-world and practice, we never left the alert hanger at either location, so no trips to town (not even to the BX).
As mentioned above, the F-22 Raptors at Elmendorf fly that role now, at least when they’re not in Poland. And since Galena and King Salmon have reverted to civilian use, Elmendorf and Eielson are the new alert locations. Most Russian ADIZ penetrations occur way up north, over the Arctic icecap, and it’s a long way away, especially from Elmendorf.
Even when we scrambled from Galena in our F-15 Eagles, which have approximately twice the range of F-22 Raptors, we needed tanker support to fly to where the Bears were predicted to penetrate, plus a second refueling to make it back to Galena afterward. I’m guessing Raptors scrambling from Elmendorf have to refuel at least three times to fly the same mission. Vipers from Eielson? At least twice.
I once intercepted a pair of Bears more than 200 nautical miles north of Point Barrow, way up over the Arctic icecap. The Russians had flown a 10-hour polar training mission and were returning to their Siberian base. Our intercept mission from Galena was more than three hours long and covered some 1,500 NM of distance.
My wingman and I rejoined on a tanker after scrambling, then vectored north under ground radar control. At some point controllers aboard an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) E-3 Sentry, orbiting near Fairbanks, took over. Passing the northern coast of Alaska, some 400 nautical miles north of Galena, we began to make out the contrails of the Bear bombers, still more than 200 NM away. After intercepting the Bears, we flew alongside for 20 to 30 minutes, taking turns photographing them with hand-held 35mm cameras, until the two alert F-15s from King Salmon showed up to take our place. My wingman and I turned southeast for the tanker, by now orbiting near Barrow, and refueled again for the long flight home.
On arrival, we approached Galena from an unconventional direction at low altitude, buzzed the tower, and landed. A USAF C-12 (a twin-engine King Air) was waiting on the ramp for our film — we’d intercepted what was then a new version of the Bear bomber, the Bear H, and intel was anxious to get a detailed look at it. I was told later that our photos were delivered less than 24 hours later to the White House, where President Reagan looked at them.
As for the F-16s currently scrambling out of Eielson, closer to the northern ADIZ, they’re range-limited as well and must require at least the same level of tanker support the Eagles operating out of Galena had. Also, the Viper’s radar has shorter range than that of the Eagle or the Raptor, so they’d also need AWACS support. Fortunately, Alaskan Air Command has both: tankers and an AWACS.
The point of all this, besides indulging in nostalgia for my days pulling Zulu* alert in Alaska? Intercepting Bears in the Alaskan ADIZ was and is a big, complex mission involving lots of people and equipment, on the ground and in the air. All the more remarkable that we never let the Russians fly in our ADIZ without an armed escort — we always respond and they always know we’re there, no matter what we’re flying at the time.
*Zulu=air defense (air-to-ground fighters pull Victor alert, for ground attack and nuclear strike).
I guess the Ivans can spare a TU-95, too big, clumsy and slow to smash apartment complexes in Ukraine, I’m thinking. That’s some complex, expensive logistics and maneuvers by the Air Force to respond to the Russian spies. I had not realized the intercept range was so distant. Always spooky flying over water, engines develop automatic rough.
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I probably should have included this graphic of the ADIZ. As you can see, it goes pretty far out over the water in two directions, north and west-southwest over the Aleutians. I’ve been a long way out in both directions. At least over the Aleutians, there are a couple of places one can land in a pinch!