Camouflaged Aggressor F-16s Are Intercepting Russian Bombers In Alaska
Joseph Trevithick - Yesterday 4:03 PM
Photographs of F-16C Viper fighter jets assigned to the U.S. Air Force's 18th Aggressor Squadron at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska armed with live AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, and AIM-9X Sidewinders have emerged online. Separately, the Air Force has all but confirmed to The War Zone that aggressor F-16s were used to intercept two Russian Tu-95MS Bear bombers after those aircraft entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone earlier this week. The crews of those Bears may well have been confused to see jets sporting elaborate camouflage and Russian-style red bort numbers pull alongside them.
F-22 Raptor stealth fighters from Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Alaska, which has established alert facilities, supported by E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and KC-135 tankers, are typically used to intercept foreign military aircraft entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). That aggressor units equipped with F-16s, which are tasked to provide mock adversaries for exercises and other training and test activities, have secondary homeland defense roles at all is not well known. The War Zone has explored this in the past in regard to the 64th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
Twitter user Aerospace Intelligence posted pictures showing three F-16s from the 18th Aggressor Squadron in hangars (likely alert barns) with live AIM-120s and AIM-9Xs – readily identifiable by the yellow and brown bands around portions of their bodies that denote the presence of an explosive warhead and rocket motor – earlier today, saying they had received them from an anonymous source. The Tweet also said that Vipers from this unit had conducted the intercepts of the Tu-95MSs, which had occurred on October 17.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/camouflaged-aggressor-f-16s-are-intercepting-russian-bombers-in-alaska/ar-AA139RsE?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=de7db7d77ef3443ea1ba989200a405fc
