Luke Airmen welcome Danish air force

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Melanie Holochwost
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFNS) --  Nearly 100 members from the Royal Danish air force fighter wing recently deployed to Luke Air Force Base for a month-long F-16 Fighting Falcon combat enhancement training mission. 

RDAF Maj. Michael Rosenkrands, the detachment commander, said they do a lot of their training outside of Denmark because of the nation's size, and for the opportunity to gain experience from their allies.

Denmark has 16,629 square miles of land, which is about half the size of South Carolina.

"Luke (AFB) is an excellent place to train because of the large airspace, ranges and weather," Major Rosenkrands said. "We also train in Sweden and Norway. During the extremely cold, foggy and icy months, we train in Portugal where the weather is warmer and runway conditions are better. And we participate in Red Flag with the United States every other year or so."

Major Rosenkrands said members from a variety of career fields including pilots, maintainers, weapons load crews, intelligence specialists, mission planners, administrators and flight surgeons are training at Luke AFB until May 19.

"Fourteen of them are coming in from Green Flag at Nellis (AFB, Nev.)," he said. "The rest are coming straight from Denmark."

Major Rosenkrands said Denmark's air force is very small.

"Denmark only has one fighter wing and two fighting squadrons," he said. "We brought eight of our 60 jets here consisting of block 10s and 15s with ... mid-life update modifications."

RDAF Maj. Micah Bell, the Danish Operations commander who is also an American exchange pilot, said the Danish aircraft would be equivalent to a Luke AFB F-16 Fighting Falcon going through continuous computed impact point, an aviation and technology update.

RDAF airmen also brought weapons that Airmen at Luke AFB may not have seen before, including AIM-9X missiles and GBU-31 and GBU-49 bombs.

"We brought both air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons," said RDAF Capt. Lars Stokholm, the Danish Logistics commander. "They don't have these weapons at Luke AFB and they are so big that we definitely can't drop them in Denmark."

The AIM-9X is a version of the Sidewinder that is a supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile that can be fired day or night, Captain Stokholmm said. The GBU-31 and GBU-49 are both global positioning system guided bombs.

Major Rosenkrands said he and his team are very excited to be at Luke AFB.

"It is a very good experience and our team is excited to see the sites in Phoenix," he said. "When a few of us were here in January we thought it would be a good idea to deploy here for training. The leadership at Luke (AFB) agreed and has been very supportive. If everything goes well, we would definitely like to come back again."