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Airborne Tactical Advantage Company: It's good to be bad
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A Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet lands on the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman during the ship's pre-deployment work ups. (US Navy Photo, Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Joshua A Moore)
Somewhere off the Atlantic coast of the Unites States, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its accompanying battle group valiantly attempt to fend off a determined enemy attack. The defenders are facing off against a huge swarm of enemy aircraft and multiple incoming anti-ship missiles. To make matters worse, enemy jamming is seriously degrading radar performance and disrupting communications. It’s a nightmare scenario for any US Carrier Strike Group commander.
This attack, however, is not real. The USS Harry S. Truman is simply undergoing a pre-deployment workup in preparation for a six-month deployment. The “enemy” aircraft are a combined force of US Naval Reserve F/A-18 Hornets and an eclectic mix of warplanes owned by the Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC) operating under contact to the United States Navy (USN).
One of ATAC's F-21 Kfir fighters at a desert location. (ATAC Photo)
ATAC has been providing contracted support to the United States military for over 13 years since the company was founded in 1996, said Scott Stacy, ATAC’s Director of Business Development. While ATAC does support United States Air Force (USAF) training, the company’s main customer is the United States Navy. “Our main job is to support the Navy fleet”, Stacy said.
To this end, ATAC supports naval carrier strike group pre-deployment exercises, partakes in various naval aviation research and development projects, supports naval testing activities, and provides adversaries “for almost every TOPGUN class”, Stacy said. The company also supports Joint Terminal Air Controller (JTAC) training for Navy and Marine Crops ground forces. JTAC training is conducted for the elite Navy SEAL Teams at the Dare County range in North Carolina while the Marines train at the Marine Corps Air Ground Training Center located near Twenty-nine Palms, California, Stacy added.
ATAC also supports USAF activities and has flown as dissimilar adversaries against the 1st Fighter Wing’s F-22 Raptors and the 4th Fighter Wing’s F-15E Strike Eagles during Operational Readiness Inspections (ORI). Currently, the company has two F-21 Kfir fighters and two A-4N Skyhawk attack aircraft deployed in support of the USAF’s Red Flag-Alaska exercises. Stacy mentioned that in just the past month, the company has deployed its forces to over a half-dozen locations in support of various military training activities.
This ATAC owned Kfir is taking-off in full afterburner during a training exercise. (ATAC Photo)
In order to facilitate its contractual obligations, ATAC currently maintains a fleet of 16 aircraft. This fleet includes six Israeli-built supersonic F-21 Kfir fighters, four A-4N Skyhawk subsonic attack aircraft, and six antique British-built Mark 58 Hawker Hunter subsonic fighters. Stacy said that the company is in the process of acquiring additional aircraft, including four more Hunters and two more Skyhawks. Stacy also mentioned the possibility of “upgrading the Kfirs with an advanced Israeli pulse-Doppler radar to simulate the latest fourth generation threats”.
Acquiring military aircraft for private corporate use is a major hurdle for companies like ATAC. Strict State Department regulations must be observed when importing aircraft such as the Kfir. Similarly, such restrictions also apply when foreign-built aircraft require servicing or refurbishment in their country of origin. Because ATAC engages the services of the original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to maintain and/or refurbish their aircraft, such regulations are especially pertinent. The cost of refurbishing aircraft and the “long lead times” required to acquire the appropriate export and import licenses is “one of the major barriers to entry in this business”, Stacy explained.
An ATAC owned F-21 Kfir fighter. The Kfir is an illegal Israeli-made copy of the French Mirage V airframe combined with an American-made General Electric J-79 turbojet engine. (ATAC Photo)
Despite the regulatory barriers, aircraft like the Kfir offer many advantages to a company like ATAC. Stacy, whose duties include flying the Kfir, explained, “We have lot of hours left on the airframes. Our Kfirs only have 800 hours on them, and they’re in very good condition”. The one draw back to the Kfir is that the older third generation fighter is equipped with only a limited avionics suite, Stacy said.
While the Kfir’s avionics are of limited capability, ATAC’ s F-21s are equipped with a state of the art jamming pod, which is required to support the Navy’s training requirements. Stacy said, “It’s the most advanced jamming pod in the Navy’s inventory”. This self-protection jamming pod was actually integrated onto ATAC’s aircraft ahead of the Navy’s own fighters, because as a private entity, ATAC can bypass much of the Navy’s intricate certification processes.
A Naval Reserve F/A-18B Hornet catching a "cross deck pendant" as arresting cables are known in the Navy. (U.S. Navy Photo, Senior Chief Photographer's Mate Mahlon K. Miller)
Stacy explains that just prior to the Examiner’s interview with him, he had flown as part of a flight of Naval Reserve F/A-18 Hornets in support of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman’s pre-deployment workups. During that sortie, Stacy’s Kfir, equipped with the DRMF jamming pod, was “paired up with two F/A-18s to replicate Red Air MiG-29s” and provided electronic warfare support for the adversary aircraft. Once close in, the Kfir replicates fast moving threats using it’s blistering speed, Stacy said. He added that while the Hornet is very maneuverable, it is not a particularly fast aircraft by the standards of fighter aviation. “The other advantage the Kfir offers is that it is dissimilar to the Hornet” Stacy said, adding that the aircraft’s delta-winged planform “resembles the Chinese J-10 fighter”.
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An ATAC owned A-4N Skyhawk. During the Falklands War between Argentina and Great Britain, the A-4 proved to be an effective anti-ship platform for the Argentine Air Force. (ATAC Photo)
At the lower end of the spectrum, ATAC’s McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) A-4N Skyhawks provide “most of the ship support”. The Skyhawks, which can be equipped with either the AST-9 threat simulation pods or the ALQ-167 jamming pods, fly profiles replicating a variety of threat platforms including those of sea skimming anti-ship missiles such as the French-built Exocet. With its phenomenal endurance, the Skyhawk is an ideal platform to perform this vital training role for the Navy, Stacy said. Additionally, the A-4, which was previously used by both the Navy and Marine Corps as a strike aircraft, is used to support JTAC training at Twenty-nine Palms, California.
The Mark 58 Hawker Hunters, which are 1950s vintage aircraft, conduct missions similar to the A-4 Skyhawk, and are the primary aircraft used for towing ship-targets and supporting research and development of naval systems. The Hunters are also used for adversary Electronic Warfare simulation and ship support duties, Stacy said. Detachments of these aircraft are stationed at both the US Navy facility in Atsugi, Japan, and the Marine Corps facility at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
To operate this diverse fleet of aircraft, ATAC currently employs 22 pilots and 50 support personnel. Stacy said ATAC hopes to eventually hire eight more pilots as the company expands to support a recently awarded Navy contract. All of ATAC’s pilots have “several thousand flight hours” in their previous military weapons system, with most having between two thousand and three thousand flight hours. Stacy also mentioned that three out of four of ATAC pilots are graduates of either the USAF Weapons School or the Navy TOPGUN program.
Stacy is a typical example of one of the company’s pilots. Stacy is a former USAF F-15C Eagle pilot with over four thousand hours of flight time. Over the course of his career, he has served with the elite 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron (TES) and was an Instructor at the USAF Weapons School. Later, Stacy transferred to the Florida Air National Guard (FANG) and eventually served as the commander of the 125th Fighter Wing at Jacksonville.
While ATAC’s pilots might be veteran military aviators, the company still has to train its crews to fly these non-standard aircraft. “Initial training is modeled on military flight training programs”, Stacy explained. Training includes both academics and flying.
Two ATAC Kfirs fly in close formation. (ATAC Photo)
Once in the air, if a two-seater is available, an instructor pilot accompanies the new employee on his or her flights. If an aircraft is only available in a single-seat configuration however, as is the case with the Kfir, an instructor in chase aircraft shadows the student.
Once a new pilot is familiar with the aircraft, that pilot is assigned to a mission area “depending on his background”, Stacy said. In other words, if a pilot’s background were primarily focused on close air support, he would be assigned to support JTAC training. The goal is to stress a “high level of professionalism”, Stacy said, emphasizing that professionalism is particularly important for ATAC’s continued success in this challenging field.
With the military’s dwindling aircraft assets, ATAC believes that demand for their services will continue to grow, Stacy explains. With an approaching “bathtub” in US tactical aviation assets, Stacy believes that the Defense Department will not have the resources necessary to provide required training to its aerial forces. Companies like ATAC, Stacy says, “are part of the solution”. ATAC, and other companies like it, Stacy believes, can provide adversary presentations to friendly forces, thus freeing up military aircraft for other more pressing missions.
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