War Begins today: NATO F-35, FA-18 and F-16 track and intercept Russian Jets near Polish air space

Post Reply
User avatar
Trucker Joe
Posts: 145
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:24 am

War Begins today: NATO F-35, FA-18 and F-16 track and intercept Russian Jets near Polish air space

Post by Trucker Joe »

LASK AIR BASE, Poland—Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets had no sooner finished a six-week deployment in the Arctic before a real-world contingency required them to redeploy to NATO’s eastern flank.

The Marine Corps rarely conducts NATO Air Policing. But in the total force muscle flex triggered by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312 finished Exercise Cold Response in Norway and flew south to central Poland. They replaced eight U.S. Air Force F-15Es from the 336th Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.

In early February, President Joe Biden quickly ramped up deployments to NATOs eastern flank to reassure allies, moving F-15Es from RAF Lakenheath and Seymour Johnson; F/A-18s from Aviano Air Base, Italy; F-16s from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany; and F-35s from Lakenheath and Hill Air Force Base, Utah, for a show of air power on borders with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Poland quickly responded, hosting an array of U.S. fighter aircraft.
American aircraft do not have a dedicated hangar at Lask, instead lining up in two perpendicular rows along the flight line. The adjustment means three-hour crew rotations for maintainers working with bare hands in the whipping wind and freezing temperatures.

The 10 multirole jets and 24 aircrew members fly four sorties a day, two F/A-18s per mission of two to four hours each, with instructions handed down from the NATO Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Uedem, Germany.

The first pair of jets sometimes depart from the tree-shrouded airfield in total darkness as early as 3:30 a.m. The squadron is refueled by its own KC-130J, also deployed to Lask, from USMC Aerial Refueler Training Squadron 252, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C.

Unlike U.S. Air Force units commuting three hours from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, to various sites on the NATO eastern flank, the F/A-18s flying from Lask Air Base, Poland, stay exclusively in Polish air space, some 60 miles east of the base. That positions them inside 200 miles of Brest, Belarus, an airport near the tri-border of Poland-Belarus-Ukraine that Russia has used to shell Ukraine. Brest also sits some 190 miles north of Lviv, in western Ukraine, which came under attack from the air again April 18.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfuk-LS0Eik
Post Reply