188th Fighter Wings Leave For Training Mission

[BUFF 8]

More than a dozen pilots with the 188th Fighter Wing flew to Fort Hood,

Texas, on Sunday to train in conditions simulated to reflect the

battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

“This is a big deal for the Wing, a monumental day,” said Lt. Col. Clark

Walker, commander of the 184th Fighter Squadron of the 188th Fighter Wing.

“It’s the first training deployment with our new planes.”

 

The 188th received the first four of a fleet of A-10 Thunderbolt II attack

aircraft in April 2007. The A-10s, regarded as suitable for the type of

close air support needed in the current ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,

replaced the F-16 Fighting Falcons flown for years by the 188th.

 

Pilots with the 188th have been training with the A-10s, also referred to as

the A-10 Warthogs, in anticipation of possibly being deployed to either Iraq

or Afghanistan in the coming years, according to Capt. Heath Allen, public

affairs officer for the 188th.

 

 

“We have to be qualified on a lot of things with a new aircraft to be

mission deployable,” Allen said. “We won’t be fully operational to deploy in

a wartime situation until spring 2010. This is part of the training to get

spun up for that.”

 

A total of 14 pilots and 60 members of maintenance personnel with the 188th

began training at Fort Hood in Kileen, Texas, upon arrival Sunday. The

pilots will fly several practice missions throughout the week until training

concludes Friday.

 

The 188th will train alongside the 4th Infantry Division and 21st Cavalry,

an attack helicopter squadron, the 9th and 11th Air Force Air Support

Operations squadrons and a Danish Army unit deployed to Fort Hood to

practice flying Apache helicopters in weather conditions far less frigid

than that of their homeland, Walker said.

 

Training in cooperation with various military machinery, such as Army Apache

helicopters and tanks, lends toward preparing for Middle East combat

conditions, Walker said.

 

“We don’t have the ability on our range to work with tanks,” Walker said.

 

The Fort Hood training grounds will also allow for the 188th to practice

simulated bombing missions against moving targets, a feature also

unavailable at the 188th’s practice range, according to Walker.

 

Although the 188th previously trained at Fort Hood from the seats of F-16s,

it is once again exciting to train at the historic base, Walker said. The

commander of the 184th Fighter Squadron described Ford Hood as the home of

the “first cavalry division that goes back to World War II.”