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Eagle School: The land of no slack
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An Oregon ANG F-15C Eagle (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman John Hughel)
For over three decades the mighty Boeing F-15 Eagle has ensured America’s dominance in the air. During that span, the aircraft has amassed an unprecedented combat record of 104 air-to-air victories for zero losses. “The F-15C is an air superiority only fighter”, said Lt. Col. Wes French, commander of the Oregon Air National Guard’s (ANG) 114th Fighter Squadron (FS), explaining that the Eagle’s sole purpose is to kill other aircraft.
Though aging, and now outclassed by the brand new Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the Eagle remains an extremely potent machine. The F-15 possesses outstanding acceleration and maneuverability with a top speed over two and a half times the speed of sound. During the course of its operational life, the aircraft has also received numerous upgrades to its avionics and weapons systems in order to maintain its’ edge over competing designs. “If I had a choice, I’d have to pick my Eagle over anything flying other than the F-22”, French said. However, as powerful as the Eagle is, without the pilot in the cockpit it is just another piece of machinery.
“The mission of the 114th Fighter Squadron is to teach students how to fly the air-to-air combat mission against other aircraft”, French explains. The 114th FS is what the United States Air Force (USAF) refers to as a Formal Training Unit (FTU). The FTU is where students who are fresh out of Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) and the Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals (IFF) course attend the B-course to become fighter pilots.
In addition to the B-course, the FTU also operates separate courses for transition students and senior officers. These transition students are pilots who have previously flown fighters but are returning to flying after a staff tour or are new to the aircraft, French said. Senior officers who are assigned to lead F-15 fighter wings are put through an abbreviated two-week course to familiarize themselves with the Eagle, French explained. He added that the senior officers course is structured differently to accommodate the time constraints of those high-ranking pilots.
Despite being an ANG squadron, the 114th FS uses “exactly the same syllabus- with slight differences for location- as the active duty FTU at Tyndall”, French explained. He added that over three quarters of the students are from the active duty component of the USAF. French further explains that in a few years, the 114th FS might be the only F-15C FTU as the USAF is considering deactivating the squadron’s active duty counterpart at Tyndall AFB, Florida.
Currently, the 114th FS trains just over 40 students per year including transition pilots, French said. A typical B-course class, he explained, will consist of anywhere from 15 to as many as 25 students and will run for six to seven months. There is “not a free moment” for the students during that time, French says, adding that “traditionally 10% washout per year from the B-course”.
For a typical B-course student, French explains, the course begins on the ground with a month of intense academics on the F-15C and its systems. Two weeks into the course, the students will begin flying in a simulator. The fledgling pilots will continue using the simulator for the next six months concurrently with flying the real aircraft. After about one month of training on the flight simulators, the student pilots will finally take to the air in a real F-15. After three sorties with an instructor in a dual seat F-15D, on the fourth mission, the fledgling fighter pilots will finally solo in the Eagle.
French explains that the next phase of the students’ training consists of learning basic airmanship in the F-15 before moving on to “employing the F-15 tactically”. After the students have mastered the basics, the course rapidly moves on to Basic Fighter Maneuvers (BFM)- “dog-fighting” in layman’s terms.
The BFM phase consists of 12 “rides”, French said, adding that many of those who washout do so during this phase of the training. There are three distinct types of BFM- Offensive, High-Aspect, and Defensive. Offensive BFM is where the student starts off behind the opposing aircraft and pounces on the unsuspecting prey. High-Aspect or Neutral BFM is where the two opposing jets approach each other head-on and vie for the advantage. Defensive BFM is where the student starts off in the disadvantaged position. French explained that Defensive BFM is one area where some students encounter difficulties, “You’re performing at 8G looking over your shoulder. BFM is physically the hardest phase”.
The subsequent phase is Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) where students build on the knowledge gained during the previous phase. ACM is where students apply their BFM skills in a cooperative engagement against an opponent. There are six such “rides” during the B-course.
The next phase of flight training is Tactical Intercepts (TI). This is mentally the most challenging phase for the B-course students and another area where many prospective fighter pilots fail to make the grade, French explained. “There are a thousand things going on”, he said, explaining that the students are not only flying the aircraft, but are operating the radar, and coordinating with other aircraft. “There’s a lot of higher brain power usage going on”, French remarked. TI sorties are also one of the few times during the B-course where the students are afforded a rare opportunity to utilize the F-15’s supersonic capability, French added.
Following the TI phase, students undergo Air Combat Training (ACT), or if dissimilar aircraft are available, Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT). This is where the students utilize all the lessons learnt from the previous phases and all of the aircraft’s weapons systems to fight an opposing force of instructor pilots flying F-15s or dissimilar aircraft. Given the available resources, French explains, “50 to 60 percent of the students get to do DACT”. In addition, the students also have to devise a mission plan to defeat an enemy force and subsequently brief that plan to the squadron’s chief of weapons and tactics for the Combat Mission Planning phase before they graduate.
Interspersed between these air combat sorties are specialized low-level training flights, night vision goggle flights, and aerial refueling training flights. One significant difference between the 114th FS and the active duty course at Tyndall is aerial refueling, French says. “We like to have a tanker for every go, so they can practice. We have 30 tankers rides, while Tyndall has four”, French said.
For most transition students, the course proceeds fairly smoothly. “Transition washouts are rare”, French said, adding that most of the transition students are returning F-15C pilots who breeze through the course. This is also generally true of pilots transitioning from the dual role F-15E Strike Eagle. As a modified strike variant of the F-15, the Strike Eagle not only flies similarly to the F-15C, it also utilizes similar tactics in the air-to-air role, French said. Other pilots transitioning to the F-15C from other platforms such as the A-10, F-16, and F/A-18 Hornet have a more difficult time, French explained.
Hornet pilots in particular, have a very difficult time transitioning to the Eagle, French explained. This is not due to a lack of skill he explains, but due to the fact that Boeing manufactured both aircraft. The control stick in the F-15 bears an uncanny resemblance to the stick installed in the F/A-18. However, while superficially the sticks look similar, the same buttons perform very different functions in the Eagle. Overcoming the muscle memory is a particular challenge for former F/A-18 pilots.
Once the students graduate from the FTU, they are considered to be Basic Aircraft Qualified. “They leave here as ready for MQT”, French explains, adding that once they arrive at their operational squadron the students are put through a Mission Qualification Training (MQT) course. The MQT will take the students to a much higher level of proficiency and “top off some of training that we can’t do here”, French said. “Our jets are exactly like the active operational jets, but we don’t have the helmet mounted sights and we have the oldest model radars”.
One of the advantages of the ANG is the experience of the personnel. While the F-15s at the 114th FS are some of the oldest in the USAF, the maintainers are some the most experienced. Some of the maintenance crews have worked on the exact same aircraft for as many as five to 10 years. “Our jets are considered the bottom of the barrel as far the Air Force is concerned, but they are very reliable because of our excellent maintainers”, French said.
Similarly, the instructor pilots at the 114th FS are some of the most experienced in the entire Air Force. The average 114th FS instructor pilot has 1800 hours of flight time in the Eagle. Meanwhile, out of the squadron’s 25 instructor pilots, four are graduates of the elite USAF Weapons School. French says this is a “big difference” from the active duty FTU at Tyndall AFB where an average instructor pilot might have between 500 to 600 hours of F-15 experience.
Experience has always been what sets the Guard apart from the active duty USAF. The unit’s motto says it all; the 114th FS is truly “The Land of no slack”.
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