Forum: General F-16 forum

Hello all,

http://www.homestead.afrc.af.mil/news/s ... =123025706

Quote:

Cactus Aloha pits Reserves against Guard

8/24/2006 - Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii -- Pilots and support personnel of the 93rd Fighter Squadron and 482nd Maintenance Group, Homestead Air Reserve Base, Fla. are training with the Hawaii Air National Guard's 199th Fighter Squadron for exercise Cactus Aloha.

[...]

Aircraft from the 93 FS identified so far:

Greetings,

Henrik.

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Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 25, 2003 - 10:03 PM Posts: 679

In a exercise such as this, do they fly WVR as well as BVR sorties? One would think the Eagles radar would make things a bit uneven.

Hello Henrik,

I was at Hickam (14aug06) during the excercise and saw from a distant view aproximately 16 F-16's. I'm a Dutch military aircraft spotter, explaining why I was not able to enter the AFB and the distant view.

So I'm interested in the other serials of the aircraft involved in this excercise. So far I've been able to find one other a/c involved from various pictures floating around on the internet:

86-0265 "93 FS"

Please let me know if anyone can identify the other a/c involved. Still puzzles me where the other F-16's were from. Problem were the heatwaves.

Kind regards,
Jeroen

Hi Jeroen,

Thank You so much for Your reply!! Very interesting!!

As posted the "Makos" of the 93rd FS was there - I would guess with 8 aircraft. So another unit with 8 aircraft would sound about right making the total of 16 as You mentioned.

I know that Montana, San Antonio and Wisconsin have been regular visitors there over the years.

Greetings,

Henrik.

Hmmm.... "Cactus Aloha"...

Units are from Florida and Hawaii....neither of which have indigenous cactus AFAIK...

WTF

Must be Air Force logic..

This started in the late 1970's with A-7D/K from the 162FW Arizona ANG. Tucson was last there in Aug/ Sept 2007 with F-16C and F-16CG acft.

Hence the name CACTUS aloha.

Maybe they should rename it Rum Runners and Pineapples Cheers

After some futher investigation I've been able to trace back a number of planes present for another exercise called "Sentry Aloha". This exercise ran from sep 6th to sep 22nd 2006. The following serials have been identified all a/c from the 149th FW/TX ANG:

87-286/SA
87-255/SA "149 FW"
87-256/SA
87-285/SA
88-409/SA "182 FS"
87-344/SA

So I would be interested to find out when these a/c arrived at Hickam.

Kind regards
Jeroen

shiz302 wrote:

In a exercise such as this, do they fly WVR as well as BVR sorties? One would think the Eagles radar would make things a bit uneven.

It's been said several times on this site, but I'll explain again. The purpose of DACT exercises is not to put the jets in the air and see who can get the highest kill total. Without going into anything classified, I will say that both sides fly different tactics, and at different radar settings.

During certain profiles one or more flights will be tasked to fly Red Air. When they fly as Red Air, they will fly at a certain speed, altitude, radar setting, and may even be limited to a certain amount of G's they can pull, depending on what is being simulated. The planes, therefore, are "handicapped" during certain profiles.

Back during my time around fighters, I remember when our pilots would come back from an ACT or DACT sortie after flying Red Air, and they didn't like it much.

I was on this deployment with the 482nd. It started around the 11th of August. And ended around the 25th. I remember because Tool played Downtown Honolulu on the 18th and 19th. And I went to both shows.

On the Aircraft. It was our 6 F-16s and F-15s from the Hawaii Air Guard. And a couple of 3rd Wing F-15s

The 62nd went to Top Gun in 89 to play Red Air, We couldn't go above Mil or turn more than 180 degrees for the first 3 days.

Is there a list of F-16 units (both ANG and AFRC) that have been there at Hickam under those Cactus Aloha/Sentry Aloha excercises?

Thanks

Forum: General F-16 forum

Exercise "Cactus Aloha" 2006