Fighters play deadly games over England

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 12

Fighters play deadly games over England

From the “Economist,” London

N.A.T.O. depends on better quality, both of men and equipment, to balance the Warsaw Pact’s greater numbers. But the gap between what N.A.T.O.’s marvellous new machines can do, and what their crews can do with them, is widening. Money spent on training would now do more to improve combat performance than money spent on yet another, and still more complicated. mousetrap. Nowhere is the problem more acute than with air combat fighers. To improve the training of their pilots and ground controllers, the American Air Force has set

up “aggressor” squadrons to train its regular fighter squadrons by “fighting” against them. Your correspondent went to R.A.F. Alconbury in England and, in an Fl 5 Eagle, flew against the 527th Tactical Fighter Training Aggressor Squadron. Trainees get the latest intelligence on Russia’s two air forces and up to 20 sorties against some of the West’s best fighter pilots who have been trained to think and fly like Russians. The “Russians” fly the F-5E Tiger 2, similar in size and performance to the Mig-21 Fishbed, still the mainstay

fighter of the Warsaw Pact. In two weeks with the aggressors a fighter pilot will progress up the scale of difficulty. Our flight was about three fourths up it: one Eagle trying to punch a hole in a barrier flown by a pseudo-Fishbed and two pseudo-Mig-23 Floggers.

A mission takes about five hours; breifings at each end and an hour’s flight in the middle with no more than about 10 minutes of air combat manoeuvring (several times the average time of actual engagements). The aggressors’ leader, a veteran of Vietnam combat flying, set up a typical Russian tactical defence of two Floggers flying long racetrack paths along the barrier

in the sky being defended and a Fishbed, with its less good radar, flying an in-and-out path in the centre, perpendicular to the barrier.

The ideal tactic for the Eagle pilot would be to attack one of the Floggers with long-range missiles, then zip through the barrier at high speed and turn for another missile attack. He must avoid following the Fishbed in the centre into a turn and being sucked into a two-on-one dogfight. All depends on early and accurate analysis of the radar picture.

Up in the air, there are lots of blips on the radar which are difficult to sort out. The ground controller tries to 'help. Too late. The

Fishbed attacks from below and in front. We make a steep dive and right turn. But a Flogger joins in. We turn away, go supersonic but are “killed” by a simulated Atoll heat-seeking missile. Aaargh. At the debriefing, probably the most valuable part of the exercise, each pilot tells his version of the fight and draws his manoeuvres on the blackboard. The four stories tally fairly well; the gunsight camera film is soon available to sort out who "killed” whom and when. Pilots who have flown against the aggressors are enthusiastic about the training. But there are not enough aggressors to go around to train all of

N.A T.O.’s air forces, end for a given amount of money the Americans would prefer to build part of a first-line squadron instead of another F-5E squadron. Also, new equipment is needed to recreate accurately the fast* moving dogfights. Next year should see the installation of a contraption that will assemble data sent by telemetry transmitters attached to each aircraft into a col« our television. The picture can be electronically rotated in order to see it from any direction. This device bids fair to increase the value of training dramatically. Bizarrely, it will be installed only in Sardinia, with the aggressors based in England.