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178th Fighter Wing
Ohio Air National Guard The Sabers |
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Based at the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Springfield, Ohio, the 178th Fighter Wing operates the F-16C/D in a training role. Since the unit adopted the training assignment in 1999, over 250 students have gone through the programs.
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Deep in the cornfields of southwestern Ohio, at a small airport just outside the Springfield city limits, the 178th Fighter Wing is busy training the next generation of F-16 pilots. With aircraft built in the mid- to late-eighties, over twenty-five sorties a day are launched, with the goal of graduating a fully mission-qualified F-16 combat wingman or new F-16 Instructor Pilot (IP). To date, over 250 pilots from the active-duty USAF, Air National Guard, Navy, and Marines have been trained since the 178th Fighter Wing received the training assignment in 1999.
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One of only three Fighter Wings in the Air National Guard to train pilots to fly the F-16, the 178th Fighter Wing is one of the busiest flying units in the Guard.
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When the training assignment was first received, the 178th Fighter Wing quickly exchanged many of their single-seat F-16Cs for the two-place F-16Ds. They received aircraft from the 115FW, Wisconsin ANG; 187FW, Alabama ANG; the 183FW, Illinois ANG; and the 174FW, New York ANG; to name just a few.
There are several different courses taught by the 178FW. The first is the Basic Course, or B course. This is for pilots who have never flown fighter aircraft of any type, but have graduated from the US Air Force Pilot Training Course. This is the longest course to complete, requiring 7 months. The next course is the Transition Course, or TX Course. This is for pilots who are experienced fighter pilots (more than 500 hours in fighters) who are not current on the F-16. These pilots may come from F-15A/C, F-15E, A-10, F-14, F-18, or AV-8 aircraft. This course lasts 4 months. There are also courses for pilots upgrading to Instructor Pilot or Night Vision Instructor Pilot. Curriculum is jointly coordinated between active-duty Air Force and the Air National Guard F-16 Training Operations, and is highly responsive to commanders' needs in the world's hot-spots, such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The instructors with the unit have a combined total of over 50,000 hours of fighter time, an outstanding level of experience known to very few fighter wings in the world.
Like many other ANG units, BRAC has set its sights on the 178th Fighter Wing. Announced in August, 2005, the current plans call for the 178th Fighter Wing's F-16s to to be distributed among several other fighter wings, namely the 132FW in Des Moines, the 140Wg in Denver, and the 149FW in San Antonio. The plans are not finalized at this time, but it does appear that BRAC will get its way.
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(left) Only 15 miles from Spingfield, Wright-Patterson AFB provides a convenient change of scenery for 178FW pilots to practice landings. Here, 87-0222 is seen as it is about to touch down on one of Wright-Patterson's runways.
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| (right) F-16C 87-0268 basks in the cool late-autumn sun on the Springfield ramp. | ||||||||||
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(left) Marked as the current "178FW" flagship, F-16C 87-0283 taxies for a morning training sortie at Springfield. |  |
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| (right) F-16D 87-0377 is a recent arrival to the 178FW, having been transferred from the 27FW at Cannon AFB, NM, in 2002. | ||||||||||
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(left) F-16D 87-0382 gets some work in at Wright-Patterson AFB, August, 2005. |  |
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| (right) Only 25% of all flights are flown with an Instructor Pilot in the backseat. | ||||||||||
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(left) 87-0367 joined the 178FW in 1999, coming from the 187FW, Alabama ANG, when the 178FW was assigned the training mission. |  |
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| (right) 87-0268 has been with the 178FW since 1993, having been previously-assigned to the 52TFW in Germany. | ||||||||||
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(above) A few 178FW machines are wearing noseart, including F-16C 87-0271.
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(left) F-16C 87-0222 was given this Scooby Doo artwork in late 2002, and wore it until the summer of 2003. |  |
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| (right) The Scooby Doo artwork was replaced with the very impressive GraveDigger artwork, applied in the summer of 2003. This artwork is still worn today. | ||||||||||
F-16C 86-0262
The 178th Fighter Wing is the proud owner of F-16C 86-0262. This airframe is the very first production F-16C (86-0044 was the first F-16D) to be equipped with the Modular Common Intake Duct (MCID), or "bigmouth" intake, which provides more air than the original intake installed on earlier F-16 models. More importantly, this aircraft is famous for shooting down an Iraqi Air Force MiG-23. While normally assigned to the 23rd Tactical Fighter Squadron "Hawks", as part of the 52nd Tactical Fighter Wing, based at Spangdahlem, Germany, it had been deployed to Incirlik AB, Turkey as part of the 7440th Composite Wing. On January 17, 1993, piloted by 1Lt. Craig Stevenson and using the callsign "Devil 01", it was patrolling the Iraqi "No-Fly" zones when it engaged and successfully downed the Iraqi jet with an AIM-120A. It is one of only a handful of USAF F-16s to achieve an air-air kill. Today, it proudly carries the green kill star beneath the canopy.
