by Dan Black

Clockwise from top: An E-3A lifts off from Cold Lake, Alta., with its radar dome that is about nine metres in diameter and two metres thick; Captain Kirk Suroka climbs into the cockpit of a CF-18; an F-15 Eagle is examined by groundcrew; Major Martin Gagnon (right) watches his screen while seated in the Pit on board a NATO E-3A.

They call it the Pit and you really have to love the irony of that. After all, we are 29,000 feet up–in a very remarkable aircraft that is doing great big doughnuts somewhere over northwestern Saskatchewan. The Pit is the nickname for the six-person workstation located about halfway back in the NATO E-3A, otherwise known as an AWACS and notable for the large rotating saucer on the roof.

Somewhere below–between us and the ground–are 70 to 75 screaming fighter jets that are busy marshalling to the east of one of Canada’s most precious military training areas: The Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, a slab of heavily forested, unpopulated land that measures 1.17 million hectares and straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. The range’s southern boundary is approximately 25 kilometres north of 4 Wing in Cold Lake, Alta., and roughly 325 clicks northeast of Edmonton.

In just a few moments those supersonic fighter jets, which appear as little green flashing specks on the AWACS’ computer screens, will begin to push forward from their mid-air holding areas. When that happens, the second simulated air war of the day begins as part of Maple Flag, the world’s largest annual tactical fighter exercise. Oblivious to all this activity are the passengers in a civilian airliner that appears on radar to be cruising in a southeasterly direction about 5,000 feet above us.

The jobs for the AWACS’ 17-member crew vary greatly, but among the more important roles for the console operators are surveillance, identification, weapons control, battle management and internal and external communications. The aircraft’s rotating radar dome and computer systems continuously gather and present to the operators detailed battlefield information. This radar gives a much bigger picture than a tactical aircraft or ground-based radar can provide. It permits 360-degree surveillance from the Earth’s surface up to the stratosphere, whether the plane is over land or water. It has a range of more than 375 kilometres for low-flying targets and farther for aerospace vehicles at medium to high altitudes.

One AWACS, flying at 30,000 feet, has well over 300,000 square kilometres in its field of view. Combined with a system that can tell the difference between good guys and bad guys, it can look down to detect, identify and track low-flying aircraft engaging in the air-to-air and air-to-ground action over the weapons range.

But to gain a better appreciation for the aircraft, it is necessary to understand Maple Flag. Hosted by 4 Wing, the exercise is broken into three, two-week periods in May and June. This year’s meet attracted close to 6,000 visiting personnel, well over half from outside Canada. The large volume of visitors injects millions of dollars into the local economy.

Personnel from the United States comprised about 50 per cent of this year’s total, and that, says exercise director Major Todd Balfe, is normal. “The Americans come here for lots of reasons. It is good training. It is close to home and relatively inexpensive.”

Other countries represented included Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Singapore. “Among the Europeans the biggest contributors have been the Germans, the British and Dutch,” adds Balfe. “But this year we have the Danes here for the first time with fighter aircraft. The Swedes are here with transport aircraft, and, of course, we (the Canadians) are here with fighter and transport aircraft….”

Balfe says while the Canadians make up less than five per cent of this year’s total, those five per cent are getting some outstanding training. “If you are locally based with a CF-18 squadron, the whole world has come to your doorstep to fly with you…. Whether you put up two or 20 planes a day, you get to operate with assets like the AWACS, air refuelling, and the planes used to destroy surface-to-air missile sites. You get to fly with those assets day after day and that kind of training is irreplaceable….”

Part of the reason Canada is sending fewer fighter pilots is because the Canadian Forces fighter force was downsized by 25 per cent through the 1990s. Balfe says there are fewer available aircraft because of the CF-18 modernization program, and in addition the air force is pretty well maxed out with other commitments, especially after Sept. 11, 2001.

Flying in the first period of the exercise were eight CF-18s from 410 Sqdn. based at Cold Lake. Other Canadian assets included Hercules transport from Trenton and Winnipeg and Griffon helicopters from Edmonton for search and rescue duties. Overall, roughly 325 aircraft participated and more than 4,760 sorties were flown during the 35th edition of Maple Flag.

Organizers are quick to explain why this training in large-scale air operations is crucial. “During the Vietnam War, 90 per cent of American aircraft losses took place during the first 10 combat missions,” says Balfe. “Those who survived the first 10 were more likely to survive the remainder of their combat tour.”

Balfe, who is also the chief planner for Maple Flag, says: “The prime objective…is to train those junior aircrew. We try to focus on the pilots–try to teach them how to operate, and that objective flows directly out of the American experience in Vietnam. The young airmen who went to war then were overwhelmed by the complexity of the scenarios they faced and quite often were not able to respond to the threats.”

Maple Flag gives junior aircrew those first 10 combat missions in a simulated environment. “We put them in an environment with 60 to 70 other aircraft on their side and we give them very capable adversary threats in the form of enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats. Without a doubt, it is an environment that overwhelms the senses, but in a safe fashion.”

Balfe says the exercise is also important for the more experienced aircrews. “The guys who command the various flight packages in each simulated attack benefit because they help orchestrate it all. They get the chance to actually put together what they have probably never seen before: A large-scale coalition strike force that not only includes air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter aircraft, but other very important assets…. And when it’s all over, they can see during the debriefing what worked and what didn’t.”

Balfe says Maple Flag is a Canadian adaptation of the United States Air Force’s Red Flag exercise held at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Canadian fighter pilots first participated in it in 1977, and the following year the Canadian commander of Air Command invited the USAF to participate in a northern exercise at Cold Lake. From then until 1987, a four-week exercise called Maple Flag was held once in the spring and again in the fall until it was switched to one, six-week period. Over the years, it has been cancelled twice, once in 1991 due to Operation Desert Storm–the Persian Gulf War–and again in 1999 due to Operation Allied Force–the air war over the Balkans.

Back in the air, we continue in an orbit that is about 15 miles wide above and to the northeast of the weapons range, and it suddenly gets very quiet in the Pit. It is just before the big push and by looking at the screens you can see the little green specks getting ready to roll out of their caps in a westerly direction toward enemy aircraft positions inside the range. The intensity of the battle builds with each passing second and it affects everyone involved.

For the three weapons controllers in the Pit, the job of keeping track of dozens of little green specks and their proximity to the enemy and one another is intense, to say the least. “It always gets a little hairy the minute you have 60 to 70 airplanes in one big mass,” explains Captain Thorsten Hinrichsen of Germany. “It is never smooth. It is a typical thing and everybody gets excited because everybody wants to get the mission done and get the best out of it.”

Normally the Pit has two weapons controllers, but during this simulated attack there are three because of the size of the air-to-air threat. Capt. Fred Brulier, who supervises the electronic sensor monitor used to detect, ground radar sites, among other things, gives an overview of what’s happening. “We have all our strikers–mostly F-15s and F-16s–that have just finished their (air-to-air) refuelling and they are positioning themselves to go over the range to fight the enemy aircraft…. The aim of this is to clear the way for the ground attack planes to go in safely and deliver their inert ordnance on the targets. At the same time we have aircraft that will go in and try to suppress enemy air defences…. So everybody is keyed up and getting ready for the push.”

Brulier says the people in the Pit are making sure all the air-to-air refuelling has been done properly and that the players involved are airborne and where they should be. “If they are missing any players–and that can be for a variety of reasons–we have to tell the package commander he is missing some and he will have to adjust his plan accordingly.”

When the fighters go in, the weapons controllers in the Pit keep the pilots updated on the current air picture, including whether any enemy aircraft are coming at them. It is well orchestrated from the word go, but as with any battle–land, sea or air–chaos can erupt quickly. Indeed, it gets so busy that one weapons controller utters a few expletives to his fighter pilots.

“The air weapons controllers are the busiest ones because they are talking to all those planes,” adds Brulier. “They have to keep the pilots’ situation awareness up to speed. They have to tell them what is going on and how the air picture is developing so the pilots can take the proper tactical actions to kill the enemy without being killed themselves.”

CF-18 pilot Capt. Kirk Soroka, who flew 20 night-time sorties over Kosovo and Yugoslavia during Operation Allied Force in 1999, describes the weapons range as a world-class arena. He says the lessons learned at the exercise are invaluable, even if the weapons are inert. “The 10 missions are designed to expose the young pilot to the fog of war,” he adds. “It is utter chaos up there. The wing man is responsible to stay visual with his lead. And if we can train them to do that then they are contributing…to the safety of the formation. If we lose them and they go blind, which means they can’t see the lead, then they become a liability and we could lose them…and the bandits will get them.”

Balfe says interest in the exercise continues to grow. In the last four years alone it has gone from 60 to 70 aircraft up to 75 to 90 planes per launch with two launches a day. He said the exercise pretty well sells itself. For one thing, the infrastructure has improved. The range is better and there is a new 250-seat theatre for briefing and debriefing. This year for the first time, aircraft were using a GPS-based pod called an Air Combat Manoeuvring Instrumentation system that allows an aircraft’s movements to be tracked and assessed more closely. “In assessing battles and how the players did we have moved from the old days of chalk and chalkboard to the world of high tech. The result is we are getting more information out during the debriefings.”

The range is ideal for combined air operations training. Its heavily forested terrain and numerous lakes resembles European topography, and differs from the desert conditions in Nevada. The hundreds of targets are generally made of plywood and resemble tanks, missile launchers, aircraft and other vehicles. There are also several mock runways, and lots of airspace above and around the range.

Balfe says interest is strong among Europeans because flying tactical exercises there has become extremely difficult due to congested air space and restrictions on noise and low-level flying. Another big reason the Europeans like it is they want to fly with the Americans. “Whether we like it or not, the U.S. military is leading the way in terms of advances in technologies, etc. Their technologies…are cutting edge so if you want to compete and participate you have to be able to keep up with them. Hence, these countries want very much to train with the Americans and see exactly what they are doing.”

He adds that Canadian and European aircrews realize that wars will continue to be fought with coalition forces. “Nobody likes wars, but when they do occur participating countries will go as part of a coalition and if we go we will go with either NATO or perhaps the United Nations. But whichever way it goes it is going to be with U.S. forces and so our technology and our skills have to be compatible with them if you want to contribute on the international stage.”

About 45 minutes after the simulated air war began, the skies over Cold Lake are clearing. The jet fighters are heading back to base and many are feeling good about the mission. It isn’t long before the AWACS is on the ground too, and by the end of the day everyone has moved that much farther up the learning curve–knowledge that can make the difference between surviving an air battle or disappearing off the screen.