скошшш The Aggressor Squadrons An inside look at the downfall of the Air Farces elite enemy simulation units. fay Reina Pennington t seemed like a good idea They were accused of ma­ of enemy air combat tactics had never at the time. Take a group nipulating intelligence data before been attempted; by the standards I of crack fighter pilots, to support outrageous tac­ of the Air Force of those days, the con­ weapons school graduates, tics; at the same time, some cept was radical. "We got thrown out and guys who flew in combat senior officers pressured of almost everybody's office because in Vietnam. Give them free them to ignore develop­ [they thought ] the Aggressor idea was access to intelligence sources ments in Soviet tactics that too dangerous," says Randy O'Neill, a so they know exactly what were seen as too danger­ former instructor at the Air Force's the enemy's doing. Give than ous to duplicate. Fighter Weapons School who, along some airplanes that look and act In the late 1980s, the per­ with fellow instructor Roger Wells, was like enemy airplanes. Then let them ceived end of the Soviet threat led instrumental in Ihe founding of the go out and fly against other Air Force to severe cutbacks in the military, and program. pilots—show what Ihe enemy might the Aggressors seemed to have out­ Wells, the outstanding graduate in look like in a real war. Thai was the idea lived their usefulness. In 1990, the Ag­ his class at the Fighter Weapons School, behind the creation of the U.S. Air gressor program—arguably one of the had been interested in the idea since Force's Aggressor squadrons in 1972. most innovative air training programs 1966, when he had flown F-4s in Viet­ For combat pilots, the first 10 mis­ in history—was disbanded. Today, many nam. He still remembers the critique sions are the riskiest; the Aggressors, former Aggressors believe that deci­ he wrote of the training he'd received: together with the Air Force's "Red Hag" sion may have been a costly mistake. "You taught me everything there is to war simulations, were designed to give know about how to fight against an­ pilots those 10 missions in peacetime. 3rom the beginning, it was a tough other American airplane, but you taught The program rapidly expanded: during 1 sell. The creation of a squadron me absolutely nothing about how to their 18-year existence, the Aggressors specifically devoted to the simulation fight against the enemy." His experi­ flew more than 200,000 sorties and made ences clearly jiointed him to the need more than a thousand training deploy­ for, in Air Force lingo, "dissimilar air ments lo U.S. and Allied unils around Until they were disbanded combat training"—training against air­ the world. in 1990, the Air Force's craft different from those the pilots were But within a few years of their cre­ Aggressor squadrons flying. To Wells, these would ideally be ation, some people—very high ranking emulated the Soviets in actual enemy aircraft flying enemy tac­ officers and line pilots among them— their squadron patches tics. In the early 1970s, O'Neill and Wells began to see the Aggressors as a plague (above), their paint began lo preach their radical gospel. rather than a cure. Some said the Ag­ schemes (opposite), and— On October 15, 1972, their persis­ gressors had ego problems; they pushed most importan tly—their tence paid off: the 64th Aggressor young pilots too hard; people got killed. air combat tactics. Squadron was activated at Nellis Air 26 Air&Space February/March 1994 Force Base in Nevada. It would provide as the first host. adversary forces for Air Force exer­ The problem was cises, train new Aggressors, and send the pilots there were Aggressor teams on deployments to just learning to fly operational wings to give academic brief­ F-4s. "I was really ings and fly against the local pilots. nervous about that," To simulate the primary' threat air­ O'Neill admits. craft of the time, the MiG-21, the Ag­ However, the gressors would fly 20 Northrop T-38s weapons officers at on loan from the Air Training Com­ Homestead devised mand. Wells' dream of actual MiG-21s a special program would have been far too expensive. The of workup flights two-seat supersonic trainer resembled for the crews se­ the MiG in one particularly important lected to fly against way: its engines did not smoke. In train­ die Aggressors, and ing against other F-4s in preparation in July 1973 the first for Vietnam, American pilots had be­ Aggressor deploy­ come dependent upon spotting the F- ment "went off beautifully," O'Neill re­ both dissimilar air combat training and 4 engines' trail of smoke, visible up to calls. That broke the ice. Soon Ihe Ag­ academic training. In popular parlance, five miles away. gressors were fulfilling a heavy schedule the Aggressors became known as So now the Aggressors had a prod­ of "road shows" to operational wings, "gomers," a slang word for "enemy" in uct—but still no market. "Probably the and a second Aggressor squadron, the Vietnam. hardest thing we ever did was lo find (55th, was created at Nellis. The U.S. The early Aggressor road shows are somebody who wanted to host us for Air Force in Europe (USAFE) created widely remembered for the quality of that first deployment," notes Lloyd the 527th Aggressor Squadron at Al- training they provided. Jerry "Sparky" "Boots" Boothby, the squadron's first conbury Air Base in England, and the Coy, former assistant operations offi­ commander. "It was like pulling teeth Pacific Air Force opened the 26th Ag­ cer of the 65th, says that during a typ­ to gel anybody to do it." At the lime, ac­ gressor Squadron at Clark Air Force ical road show, six aircraft and seven cident rates in the tactical air forces Base in the Philippines. or eight pilots, plus support personnel, were high. "Wing commanders were By the mid-1970s, the Aggressor pro­ deployed to the host base. About 20 pi­ scared to have us come," says Ron Iver- gram seemed to be on the fast track to lots from the host squadron were des­ son, one of the original Aggressors and success. In 1975 the Aggressors got a ignated to fly against the Aggressors; later a two-star general. "All they'd heard new fighter: the F-5E. Built for export, generally the host pilots flew once a was there was a bunch of guys out at the F-5 was small and sleek, with sim­ day, while the Aggressors themselves Nellis Hying T-38s, they're going to ple avionics. It could achieve supersonic flew two or three sorties a day. The come and whip up on your guys, and speeds only in short bursts, and it had host pilots were usually so wrung out your accident rate will probably go even tiny fuel tanks. The only weapon sys­ after one, that was all they could han­ higher." tem it had was its guns. But in terms of dle," Coy says. Wing commanders were also reluc­ performance, the F-5 was a better sim­ The type and size of the missions- tant to be first because they knew it ulator of the MiG-21 than the old T-38. were always tailored to the host unit. would put their wing under a micro­ Once they were accepted, the Ag­ Typically for the first few days of a road scope. As O'Neill points out, "We knew gressors visited every operational wing show Ihe training consisted of a series thai when we made our first deploy­ two or three limes a year, providing of single Aggressors flying against sin- ment, everybody and their brother For Lloyd Boothby would come down (above; now a sales from the Pentagon. manager at a IMS Vegas Everyone waiting hotel) and Randy O'Neill for us to go kill (left), the Air Force's ourselves, the performance in Vietnam naysayers—we pointed to the need for knew they'd be combat training with out in force." dissimilar aircraft. For Finally, an F-4 most of their 18 years, replacement train­ the Aggressors ing unit at Flori­ accomplished this with da's Homestead the Northrop F-5 (right), Air Force Base bedecked in large, Soviet- agreed to serve style nose numbers. 28 Air&Space February/March 1994 glc F-4 crews. Single-ship training flights before onboard videotape, they relied mander, Ron Iverson, in the bar at the focused on basic fighter maneuvers on memory, brief clips of gun camera officers' club and tried to convince him rather than specific enemy tactics. film, and tape recorders. Every pilot that my background uniquely qualified After a few days, the training sce­ had his own memorization techniques. me to be the next Aggressor intelli­ narios might be upgraded to two F-4s Most commonly, Aggressor pilots taped gence officer. Within a few months, I'd against a single Aggressor. Later in the a running monologue during the flight. received special permission to curtail deployment, or if the host pilots were The maneuvers used, their effective­ my tour at Hill and transfer to Nellis. more experienced, two Aggressors ness, and the "learning outcomes" were The Aggressors always worked at would square off against two host pi­ all discussed in the debriefing. the junction of operations and intelli­ lots. At the leader's call of "Fight's on!" gence^—sadly, a relationship that in the ihe Aggressors would simulate Soviet first encountered the Aggressors as Air Force has usually been weak.