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PACAF’s team uses advantage during William Tell

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- A pilot checks his radar and looks over his shoulder to see an enemy fighter at his 3 o’clock position. The infrared seeker on the air-to-air missile rotates to the right as the pilot moves his head. He lines up the enemy fighter with the crosshairs on his helmet-visor display and shoots. The missile launches towards its target, and the pilot continues flying on course for the next intercept.

A few years ago, this might have been a scene in a sci-fi movie or a scenario for a video game. At William Tell 2004, the Pacific Air Forces F-15 Eagle team is flying and competing with three futuristic technologies that enable pilots to detect enemies from further away, target nearby enemy aircraft with a glance and shoot missiles in a wider range of directions.

The systems are the APG-63/V2 electronically-scanned radar array, the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System and the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. More than a year ago, Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, became the first operational unit to use these systems, said Maj. Chris Stratton, captain of the PACAF William Tell team from Elmendorf’s 19th Fighter Squadron.

During the William Tell competition, pilots from five major command teams compete against each other in five flying scenarios, including a live missile shoot, a live gun shoot, an alert mission, a flight of two aircraft against four and a flight of four aircraft against an unknown number of aggressors.

“In the two (versus) four and the four (versus unknown), our advanced technologies will give us a slight advantage,” Major Stratton said. “The V2 radar is a quantum leap better than its predecessor, the V1 [version]. It increases the range at which we can detect enemies. Unlike old-fashioned radars that move back and forth, the V2 [version] scans electronically.”

The other teams will be competing with the older version of the radar.

The cueing system is a special helmet modification that takes the standard heads-up display one step further. Instead of projecting radar and weapons system information above the console in the cockpit for easy viewing, system displays mission-critical information on a pilot’s helmet visor.

“This means that you don’t have to change the direction of the aircraft to acquire a target, you just have to move your skull,” Major Stratton said. “It used to be ‘lose sight, lose fight,’ but now everything is displayed on the helmet, and it tells you where to look to see the bandit. You don’t have to put your (aircraft’s) nose on the target to acquire it.”

The AIM-9X works with the cueing system. More advanced than the typical Sidewinder, the infrared seeker on the AIM-9X swivels in the direction the pilot looks while wearing the cueing helmet.

During William Tell, only the PACAF and U.S. Air Forces Europe teams will be using the AIM-9X, which has several other advantages over the older AIM-9.

“It has a greater off-bore sight capability than the AIM-9. Off-bore sight capability is the width of the angle in front of the aircraft’s nose in which the missile can be used effectively,” Major Stratton said. “It also has a greater range than the AIM-9.”

Loaded up with all the new gadgets, people might think the PACAF team has a clear advantage in William Tell, but the team is facing a disadvantage -- live gun training.

Pilots at Elmendorf do not practice live gun shoots because of logistical constraints, while all the other teams do.

For the gun shoot, which is one of the five flying profiles in the competition, a plane tows an 8-foot-by-40-foot rectangular cloth banner with a red circle painted on it. In groups of two, the pilots take turns shooting at the banner. Each group gets two minutes to take as many shots as possible. After the event, the holes in each team’s banner are counted and points are awarded accordingly, said Lt. Col. Randy Chow, William Tell deputy chief assigned to the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group here.

“I think our advanced technology will give us a slight advantage [in] a couple of the profiles, but all the other teams have a decided advantage on the gun shoot because they’ve practiced more than us,” Major Stratton said.

Despite Elmendorf’s high-tech jets, the trophies are still very much up for grabs.

“I think it’s going to be anybody’s ball game,” Major Stratton said. “We’ve got a technological advantage, Tyndall has a home-field advantage, the Air National Guard has very experienced pilots, and the Air Education and Training team is made up of all instructor pilots.

“This is going to be like a NASCAR race -- one guy has a Ford, another guy has a Chevy, a third has a Dodge. They all have different capabilities, but it makes for a great competition,” he said.