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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0402.PDF
402 FLIGHT International, 15 March 196: Lockheed F-I04C Storfighter, multi-mission intercepter with which Federal German Air Force squadrons are being equipped AAFCE: EUROPE'S AIR DEFENCE system has been so devised that autonomous control of operations can be exercised by centres below SOC level." From missiles to aircraft is only a short step when it comes to the Convair F-102, the aircraft the company designed after winning a USAF competition for an intercepter to carry the Falcon and its associated fire control system. A USAF squadron of these air craft, the 32nd, is based at Soesterberg, near Utrecht, most historic airfield in Dutch military aviation, where these aircraft come under Royal Netherlands Air Force operational control The 102 can carry six Falcons, four of them radar-homing and two heat-homing, in its internal missile bay; they are fired automatically by the Hughes MG-10 control system in the fuselage nose. This system can also take over control of the aircraft and effect an interception. At Soesterberg two F-102s are kept in a special alert status hangar with roll-up aluminium doors and heating for cold weather. The 32nd, only F-102 squadron in 2 ATAF and only USAF squadron under Dutch operational control, received its aircraft in July 1960. There are three F-102 squadrons in 4 ATAF and two based in Spain. The 32nd averages 16 sorties per day; its pilot strength varies between 24 and 28 and the number of personnel on the squadron— 700—bears witness to the amount of ground support required for complex aircraft. Two Hunter squadrons of the RNAF, 325 and 326, operate from Soesterberg on intercepter duties. There is also a training flight, equipped with Hunter T.7s and Fokker S-14s. Pilots who eventually come to fly Hunter F.6s of the RNAF start their flying at Brustem. where training facilities on Fouga Magisters are shared with the Belgian Air Force. They then go to Woensdrecht to fly T-33s. The Royal Netherlands Air Force divides its operational func tions between home defence and AAFCE: its tactical component forms a part of 2 ATAF; its intercepter elements, which formerly were responsible only for protecting Dutch airspace, are now integrated under centralized control with other elements of Central Europe's defence forces. One interesting point about their opera tions is that, by convention, the RNAF never flies on Sundays; though of course this would not apply in the case of AAFCE exercises. In addition to their Hunters the Dutch operate F.84Fs in the fighter-bomber role, RF-84Fs on fighter-reconnaissance duties and F-86Ks for all-weather interception. F-84Fs form the equipment of Belgian Air Force fighter-bomber squadrons, and the wing at Kleine-Brogel, in the north-east of Belgium near the German border, has two operational squadrons and a training squadron. Each of the operational squadrons has 25 pilots and there are six instructors on the training squadron; average flying time per year per operational pilot is 200hr. There is a strong sense of operational responsibility at Kleine-Brogel, so much so that when a practice alert was held at 11.30hr on a recent Sunday, everybody came back to the station. This was particularly commendable in that the Belgians, like the Dutch, are strict about Sunday observance. Kleine-Brogel is on the engagements list of the 2 ATAF evaluation team, which is expected to call any time up to August 1 this year, giving only two days' warning. The F-84Fs of this fighter-bomber wing—lOe Jacht Bomer Werper—carry overload tanks of 450 US gal each and an average sortie may last lhr45min. Air-to-ground attacks can be made with napalm bombs, rockets or guns. The aircraft operate in pairs, a procedure considered to be of psychological and practical value. One of the squadrons is sometimes detached to an airfield sorm- distance from Kleine-Brogel; this is just a runway and parking area. There is another BAF fighter-bomber wing, the 2me, at Florennes, south of Charleroi and Namur. One of the characteristic tendencies in the 2 ATAF operational set-up is to have airfields with combined strike/reconnaissance capability. This is clearly seen at Wildenrath, west of MUnchen Gladbach, one of the busiest airfields in RAF Germany. It is the port of entry for all British forces going to Germany, now that air trooping has superseded the Hook - Harwich route. It has 200-250 visiting aircraft per month and in addition to its transport and army liaison duties is a fully operational airfield. Like the other three RAF airfields on the German-Belgian and German-Dutch borders —Briiggen, Geilenkirchen and Laarbruch—it is a base for Canberra PR and interdictor squadrons—17, which has PR.7s, and 88, with B(I).8s. Both these squadrons, which operationally react to No 1 Tactical Operations Centre at Goch, have a day and night capability. 17 Sqn, which last year gained the RAF Germany Sassoon Trophy and won the long-range day mission section in the AAFCE com petition "Royal Flush," carries out either low-level reconnaissance (250ft) or the "classic PR" role. Sorties may last three hours and the normal crew is three, but in night operations three navigators are carried. Main camera used is the F.95, with differing lens sizes. The squadron has ten aircraft and each crew does about 30hr flying per month. 88 Sqn similarly operate at either low or high level, by day or night; a basic ingredient in their techniques is the LABS manoeuvre. The writer had the privilege of flying on a training sortie with 88 Sqn a few years ago, as described in Flight for December 27, 1957. Canberras—their latest marks "providing much of the teeth and eyes of the Second Allied Tactical Air Force"—have been a staple part of 2 ATAF for about ten years; but elsewhere the equipment is changing, and nowhere more dramatically so than with the pro vision of Lockheed F-104 Starfighters—being produced under licence in Germany, Holland, Belgium and Italy. At Noervenich, between Aachen and Bonn, there is a GAF fighter-bomber wing which originally had F-84Fs but is now training on F-104Fs in preparation for the F-104Gs it expects to receive next June: two squadrons are to be formed in the wing. At Noervenich, national characteristics were strongly apparent, as they were subsequently at the French and Canadian bases Strasbourg-Entzheim and Baden- Soellingen. There was much evidence of German thoroughness and organization; there was also a pronounced military atmosphere, with the grey uniforms, anti-aircraft artillery and small bodies of airmen (looking like soldiers) marching around wearing steel helmets and with cylindrical gas-mask containers slung over their backs. Concentrated but thorough training is given to pilots who are to fly the F-104Gs, of which the German Air Force is to form six fighter-bomber and four intercepter wings. Pilots have done 150hr on F-84s (or -86s) before they come to Noervenich; this is not a great deal of experience, and a failure rate of up to 20 per cent on the course is expected. This is partly because training time is limited and the 104s are complicated aircraft; the systems to be handled "may be too much for a weak pilot," as one of the instructors put it. The F-104F flight training programme at Waffenschule (weapon school) der Luftwaffe 10 at Noervenich is intensive: it consists of 14 missions in 13hr 15min flying time and these include dual and solo conversion flying, high performance familiarization, aerobatics, formation, IF, low-level navigation, night conversion and an evaluation check. There are three squadrons in the waffenschule, two of them based at Oldenburg, and there are 17 instructors in the training squadron. The ground school course for pilots on flight systems, engine and other aspects of the F-104G takes two weeks. The wing is now very anxious to get its new aircraft, having sent away its F-84s in August last year. Delay in arrival of the F-104Gs is said to be due to snags with the electronic equipment —which, like that on the F-105s, was developed in a dry atmos phere—and to the complications of fighter-bomber modification. There are both Lockheed and General Electric technical represent atives at Noervenich, and instructors include four USAF pilots. National characteristics were also strongly in evidence at Baden- Soellingen and Strasbourg-Entzheim, in that the RCAF base had a particularly Canadian atmosphere of clean efficiency and the French base was overshot with proud echoes of the distinguished writer, Antoine de St Exupery, who made his last flight as a member of the 33me Escadre de Reconniassance which is now based there: Concluded on page 418
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