All for one - NATO aircraft monitor America's skies Published May 16, 2007 By Tech. Sgt. Orville Desjarlais 552nd Air Control Wing Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFNEWS) -- Nine years ago, Mike left his hometown of Lincoln, Neb., and joined the Air Force to see the world. And see the world he did. As an airborne warning and control system pilot in NATO, he's been to places that friends and family can only read about in travel magazines. In fact, he was participating in an exercise in Norway on Sept. 11 when he happened to be watching television. He stared in horror as civilian airliners smashed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. "Our fellow NATO members were shocked," said Mike, who doesn't want to use his full name for security reasons. "However, it was neat to see NATO's response. There was a sense of solidarity and unity." Nearly a month later, Mike peered out his cockpit window and saw something quite different than the lush hills of Spain and the majestic peaks of the Alps. He was monitoring the skies over New York City, Washington, D.C., and other metropolitan areas. For the first time in NATO's 52-year history, alliance people and planes from 13 countries were deployed in defense of the United States. The allies formally invoked the organization's Article 5, which states an attack against one member is an attack against all. "I would have never guessed that we'd be coming to Tinker for homeland defense. We are equipped very well to do the surveillance mission, so it made a lot of sense to task us," said Mike, who was deployed to Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., for six weeks. About 200 other NATO aircrew members and maintainers have been at Tinker since early October. The five NATO aircraft teamed up with the 552nd Air Control Wing, whose 28 E-3s and nearly 3,400 military members help support the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is responsible for defending U.S. and Canadian air space. Since October, NATO has flown nearly 300 AWACS homeland defense missions. However, homeland defense constitutes just one quarter of all the operations for the American AWACS unit. The wing is also flying in operations Southern Watch and Northern Watch in support of the no-fly zones over Iraq, as well as sorties in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. "We couldn't do what we do without NATO," said Maj. Art Henry, a mission crew commander who orchestrates all the activities in an aircraft that has 13 to 19 crew members. "We have four operations going simultaneously, and we couldn't sustain those commitments without NATO. Defending the homeland is the keystone to a defense department," said the major, who's a member of the Canadian component of the 552nd Air Control Wing. Daily missions Within an hour of the attacks at the World Trade Center, a U.S. E-3 Sentry was flying over Washington, D.C., supporting combat air patrols. They've been flying nonstop over the capital since. These are not your normal flights. They're so long that crews have to pack two meals. They have a choice between sandwich box lunches and TV dinners. NATO uses a process called a "buddy crew" to shave off hours from a flight crew's duty day. Normally a crew would prep the plane themselves, but this would add two hours to an already long 10- to 16-hour mission. For example, an aircrew not scheduled to fly that day preps the plane for the crew that is. It's like warming up the car for your spouse. This means the "buddy crew" shows up at the plane at 3 a.m., hauls lunches on board, checks the headsets, makes sure everything is operating and preps the aircraft. Some even leave white packets of alcohol pads on the corner of the consoles, much like leaving little mints on hotel pillows. They do this because once they check the mask for oxygen flow they don't want to pass germs to other aircrew members. With the aircraft "cocked and ready," aircrews just have to show up, board the plane and take off. "The missions are longer than we're accustomed to," said Norwegian Col. Roy Olsen, NATO's deployed detachment commander. "As for working with Americans, we've worked together before, and it's no problem." NATO members are accustomed to frequent deployments, but nothing like their commitment to Operation Noble Eagle. They're used to two-week exercises, not six-week temporary duties, which is their average stay at Tinker. German Capt. Oliver, an E-3 pilot who also wanted to be identified only by his first name, left his young wife and 18-month-old son at home. "When I left, my son was able to say one word at a time. While I'm here, he's learning to string words together. By the time I get back, his speech will be very much improved." Despite missing his son's first sentences, the captain said he feels needed here. "I'm proud to be here, which relieves the pain of being away from my family. There's a lot of cooperation between us and the Americans, and I enjoy working here," he said. Many of the American and Canadian aircrews have considerable respect for their NATO counterparts for a variety of reasons. "The NATO crews bring a lot of color," Henry said. "Each crew has its own unique way of doing business. To be able to see them all work together is really cool. They are experienced NCOs and officers. They come here with boatloads of experience from their respective countries and from NATO. When they step into an operation like this, there's not a lot of training that has to be done. They fall back on their experience and do a fantastic job. There is no difference, except for maybe the accent at the other end of the radio." This doesn't mean NATO operations at Tinker are problem free. Since the E-3 Sentry was built in the United States, the NATO maintenance supply route is reversed while aircraft are here. However, since they're stationed at an AWACS base, the NATO maintainers are finding ways to keep them flying. "NATO was created to mainly operate out of the European theater," said 1st Lt. Patrick Luna, a U.S. maintenance officer assigned to NATO. "The good thing is that we're operating out of Tinker. If we'd been stationed anywhere else, we would have had problems," said the Texas native who's in charge of about 75 maintainers. The duration of this deployment forced NATO to think of new ways to maintain their aircraft. Like a car that needs oil changes every 3,000 miles, aircraft need scheduled maintenance, called phases. Normally, a NATO E-3 would be hauled into a phase dock for maintenance, but it wouldn't be cost effective to fly every aircraft back to Germany. "We're now training every single crew chief who deploys here to accomplish phase inspections themselves," Luna said. He said they also get a lot of support from the American unit and the Air Logistics Center at Tinker. Roll out the welcome mat Although Oliver and the rest of the NATO crews only get one day off per week, they still find time to enjoy the local Oklahoma City area. "Everyone is very friendly, and everybody is stressing that we are welcome," Oliver said. "They say they appreciate us being here and helping with the operation." Appreciation comes in the way of free drinks or dinners. The local chamber of commerce even invited them to an old-fashioned country and western barbecue. "We had ribs, chicken and beans," Oliver said. "Everybody got a cowboy hat and belt buckle, and I even tried my hand at square dancing and roping. I'm better at being in the cockpit than being a cowboy." Oklahomans may be more thankful for NATO's war against terrorism than other Americans because still fresh in their minds is the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people. "I was very happy to see the NATO forces come to our defense," said Mary Kalbert, the Rotary International District governor of district 5750. "Just knowing that the skies were being patrolled by our allies made me feel more secure. As a country, we are honored by their presence." Not only are Oklahomans thankful for their presence, Secretary of the Air Force James Roche made it a point to shake hands with every ally he met during his visit to Tinker in February. "I've been amazed at the performance of our [E-3] Sentry aircraft crews and NATO allies who have come to join us," Secretary Roche said. "It's extraordinary the way [they've] been able to perform their mission. My special compliments to the maintenance crews who keep these planes going." As an American E-3 pilot in NATO, Mike is comfortable flying shoulder to shoulder with aircrew members from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. He's accustomed to listening to the different accents in his cockpit headphones, and seeing the multiple colors of each country's camouflaged uniforms. What he still finds strange, though, is the fact that he's flying these surveillance and fighter-control missions over U.S. soil. "I would've never imagined that before Sept. 11," he said. Like most members of the U.S. and NATO militaries, it's a feeling he said he'll probably never get used to. Editor's note: Reprinted from Airman magazine, June 2002.