News

Team Dover participates in joint training exercise

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class William Johnson
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  In the snowy mountain top terrain of Pennsylvania, one of Dover Air Force Base's own C-17 Globemaster III soars overhead and deploys countermeasure flares at simulated surface-to-air missiles also known as, smokey SAMs.

Members of Dover's 326th Airlift Squadron participated in a joint live fire training exercise with members of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard 193rd Special Operations Wing's Detachment 1 Feb 2, 2014, at the Bollen Live-Fire Range Complex on Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.

Senior Master Sgt. Will Ketner, 193rd SOG Bollen Range NCO in charge, worked with the Air Force Reserve Crew from Dover and said the training Bollen Range can offer to C-5 Galaxy and C-17 crews is invaluable.

"The range has threat simulators to help simulate the threat of enemy fire from the ground in the form of lasers and smokey SAMs," said Ketner. "When the C-5s and C-17s deploy their countermeasure flares, we have the ability to record and give feedback to see how effective they were."

Bollen Range is a joint installation shared between the ANG and Army Guard, and is able to create and support joint training opportunities between all of the military service branches. The range offers more than 163 optically scoring targets at varying altitudes and has two certified drop zones to accommodate Joint Precision Airdrop Systems, Container Delivery System (CDS) and sandbag drops from multiple aircraft types including Dover's C-5 and C-17.

The Dover C-17 during this training was piloted by a crew from the 326th Airlift Wing. Pilot in command, Lt. Col Stephen Lewis, 512th Operations Support Squadron chief of tactics, said the Bollen Range provided the crew with an opportunity to conduct realistic combat environment training.

"Pilots were able to practice a low altitude ingress and threat reactions utilizing live countermeasures," said Lewis. "The range affords us the opportunity to conduct training that is not available at many locations."

Dover's C-17s were not alone during their training. Two A-10C Thunderbolts from the Maryland Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Squadron and Joint Terminal Air Controllers from the 11th Air Support Operations Squadron out of Fort Hood, Texas, conducted live fire training exercises on the range as well.

A-10C Thunderbolt pilots coordinated with JTACs on the ground to perform close air support training. The A-10C Thunderbolts targeted a line of armored personnel carriers designated by the JTACs and performed strafe runs on the carriers with 30-millimeters training rounds.

Staff Sgt. Steven Stein, 11th ASOS joint terminal air controller, was one of the JTACs communicating with the A-10C Thunderbolts and said the training offered at Bollen Range is realistic to what you can expect to encounter down range in Afghanistan.

"Being in a fiscally constrained environment, we don't get to do this type of training as much was we use to," said Stein. "When we come out here to Bollen Range, they offer us realistic training and the biggest bang for our buck."

Ketner said the full-time Guardsmen, consisting of six enlisted and two officers, can support up to 2700 sorties a year.

"We train jointly here at the range which means we can train the way we fight," said Ketner. "A lot of ranges can't offer this training and this is what we believe puts us heads and shoulders above the rest."