VIA a Daily Report from Air & Space Forces Magazine, there’s lots of action in the Pacific.
Oren Liebermann of CNN reports on what it’s like flying a mission in a B-52.
...The mission area
On the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, MYLAR11 reaches the mission area, a rectangle of air space between southern Japan and South Korea. Hours earlier, North Korea test fired a mid-range ballistic missile, a stark reminder of the threats in the area.
In October, Chinese fighter jets intercepted a B-52 bomber at night over the South China Sea, south of our position. The Chinese jet flew within 10 feet of the much larger bomber in what the US called an “unsafe intercept.” This time, it’s allied fighters nearby.
Between layers of clouds, our B-52 and a second accompanying bomber fly in formation with Japanese and South Korean fighters, who take up positions off our wings. In reduced visibility with multiple aircraft flying close together, the crew remains alert. But the smaller fighters, who don’t have the endurance of the massive bomber, can’t linger long. The mission requires precise timing.
“The more players there are, the more complex and interesting the mission gets,” said Capt. Sabin “Jett” Park, one of the B-52 pilots.
There is a must-see video at the link with footage from inside the aircraft, as well as a look at some of the additional elements that make it possible to show our allies and our enemies that “We have a B-52 where you need it, when you need it, within 48 hours.”
The article is an engrossing read. The capabilities reported here are even more impressive considering the age of the plane in question (decades older than the crew) and how difficult it is to fly a mission like this at the best of times. As it happened, they had to shut down an engine (One of 8) on the return leg, and one of the landing gears had to be coaxed into cooperating with the landing.
The crew had to navigate precisely across thousands of miles in order to meet up with the tankers that would keep them in the air, and rendezvous with the fighters that need to practice intercepts and escort duties — coordinating across several militaries. They also had to maintain alertness and find time and places to catch some sleep during the 33 hours of the mission.
The purpose of the media access on this mission is, among other things, to let our potential adversaries — especially China — be aware of the kind of reach we and our allies can muster. China is proving worrisome in its efforts to dominate the South China Sea near critical global shipping routes, while expanding and modernizing its air force, and building up its naval capabilities.
In a related story from Air Force Times, Noah Robertson reports:
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a contract for an airfield on Tinian, a Pacific island military leaders consider crucial to their plans in the region.
Fluor, an engineering and construction company based in Irving, Texas, will receive about $409 million to finish the project within five years, the company announced April 10.
Tinian is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American territory north of Guam and about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. The Air Force launched bomber raids against Japan from Tinian during World War II. Since then, the island’s jungle has grown over the finished runways.
For years, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command — the military organization responsible for the region — has wanted to rebuild them. Its goal is part of what the Air Force calls Agile Combat Employment — divvying U.S. forces into smaller groups around the region. More, smaller groups would make American positions harder to target, the argument goes.
Tinian was a critical base in the U.S. Pacific campaign against Japan. The jungle has mostly reclaimed the miles of runways built during World War II to support the B-29 bombers that carried out attacks on the Japanese mainland. It’s where the two missions that dropped atomic bombs on Japan were launched. Restoring the runways to functionality is expected to be relatively straight forward, and their length makes them especially valuable.
The U.S. is exploring other ways to support its operations in the Pacific. From Jonathan Snyder at Stars & Stripes:
The Air Force has expanded its reach in the Pacific by refueling an airborne strategic bomber and a special operations aircraft from a commercial tanker for the first time.
The B-52 Stratofortress and MC-130J Commando II were gassed up over the Pacific on March 10 by a KDC-10 tanker from Omega Aerial Refueling Services, the Air Force said in an April 5 news release.
Omega fills a gap between demand for aerial refueling in the Pacific and the Air Force’s ability to meet it, according to the Air Force.
“The Omega commercial refueling platform offers military aircrew operating in the Pacific with another option to train and obtain mission support when tanker demand exceeds existing military capacity,” Lt. Col. Reagan Mullin, 1st Special Operations Squadron director of operations, said in the release.
Omega Aerial Refueling Services looks to be racking up quite a record. Their fleet of tankers can support both kinds of aerial refueling used by the U.S. military, boom and probe/drogue. Given the troubled history of the Boeing K-46A Pegasus tanker, it’s not entirely surprising the U.S. Military is turning to commercial tankers to fill the gap.
What with the fight over aid to Ukraine, Israel in Gaza, the threat of Iranian action (now realized), and the Houthi forces complicating shipping, it’s easy to forget that there are other places in the world we have to keep an eye on. These news items from the Air Force are just part of the Big Picture as we and our allies try to look after our mutual interests.