LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va –
Langley pilots faced a new adversary this week when they trained with F/A-18 Hornet pilots and crews from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312 Jan. 12 to 16.
The 1st Fighter Wing's 71st and 94th Fighter Squadrons conducted dissimilar aircraft training with the Marine crews from Beaufort, S.C., to prepare for their upcoming Red Flag exercise. Dissimilar aircraft training involves fighting against types of aircraft other than your own. This type of training didn't have the emphasis in the 1960's and 1970's as it does today.
"The Vietnam war was the first time many of our pilots maneuvered against an aircraft other than the one they flew," said 1st Lt. Glenn Meleen, 71 FS F-15C pilot. "You could think of it as playing baseball, skipping the warm up circle, going right from the dugout to the batter's box, and then only getting one swing at the plate when it mattered.
"While it's difficult to train against actual enemy aircraft we can maximize our training against other blue air fighters, like the F/A-18, to show us different sight pictures and give us a couple of practice swings," He said. "When we see that Russian-built fighter for the first time in combat, we are more experienced and can make that one swing of the bat count."
The primary mission of the Hornet pilots was to upgrade two of their pilots to Air Combat and Tactics Instructors. One of the requirements for this upgrade was that their training had to be completed against dissimilar adversaries.
"When we fight (dissimilar) aircraft it's not something we see every day," said Capt. Greg Phillips, VMFA-312 aviation safety officer. "We are very used to fighting F-18s, however when we go into combat we're going to be seeing other aircraft, possibly F-15s sold to other countries, but also foreign country aircraft that have similar characteristics."
The Marines were successful at their upgrades. The 71st Fighter Squadron's F-15s provided red air forces for the Marine pilots who, in return, also acted as red air aggressors fighting against F-15s and F-22s.
"Once in a while we get a good deal where we get to fight other platforms: F-15s, F-16s, and even F-22s if we get lucky," said Capt. Jeremiah Hughes, VMFA-312 F-18 pilot.