FLUG REVUE June 2006: Boeing E-3A patrols European skies

June 2006

BOEING E-3A: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

By Karl Schwarz

Half an hour after taking off from Geilenkirchen, the cabin slowly comes to life. The computer engineer starts up the computers in the E-3A Sentry, as our aircraft, tail code LX-N90447, heads towards the south-east. Tactical director, surveillance control officers and fighter controllers can now start configuring their consoles for the forthcoming exercise. Frequencies are set with skilful movements of the hand and the operational area is defined. On the screens, coastlines and national borders appear in magenta, along with many hundreds of green dots which represent the dense air traffic over central Europe.

The green colour indicates that these are not targets captured by the E-3A's own radar but secondary radar data received from outside (transponder replies from transponder-equipped aircraft). It takes a good 45 minutes for the AN/APY-2 E-3A radar with its huge, dome-mounted rotating antenna on top of the fuselage to be thoroughly checked out by the radar technician and made operational. Even during normal operations, check routines are carried out every 20 minutes to ensure that the radar data is of a uniform quality. The antenna and the electronics with the powerful transmitter in the rear cargo bay are continually cooled.

Meanwhile we are now flying above Austria and into Hungarian airspace. At an altitude of about 9,000 metres, “NATO 40” reaches its assigned M3 orbit close to the border of Croatia. The pilots turn and in the next hour they fly continuous “racetrack circuits” with a radius of around 25 km.

Because the aircraft commander had postponed take-off in order to have greater fuel reserves for the return journey, we just reach our destination on time. “On station,” reports the tactical director in the cabin, following which things start happening. The aircraft has been tasked with commanding an interception manoeuvre in which two Hungarian MiG-29's are pitted against L-39 trainers in an exercise area of airspace in the eastern section of the country. While the surveillance control officer and his three surveillance operators have the entire situation in view, a fighter controller zooms his radar image to the area of interest and takes up radio contact with the jet pilots. His job is to “talk them” to their targets – assistance which the Hungarians, who in the days of the Warsaw Pact were not used to taking their own decisions, are happy to take up.

“How much talk there is varies enormously despite the standardised terminology,” says Captain Peter Verlande, who is accompanying us on the flight and is using the opportunity to conduct the periodically required review of the competence of a fighter controller. Following an approach, we track the MiGs and L-39's as they separate again, while the yellow squares retire to opposite corners of the reserved airspace for the next fight.

Meanwhile we look over the shoulder of the surveillance control officer. “These aircraft should really be identified,” he says, drawing our attention to some symbols moving from Serbia towards the north-west. On the basis of their speed and routing, they are almost certainly commercial aircraft, but actually the ground control stations should respond more quickly and, in case of doubt, designate the targets as “hostile” so that they are shown red.

Back to the exercise. After several intercept manoeuvres the MiGs are running short of fuel, so they break off and head back to their home base in Kecskemet, where the L-39's are also stationed. For the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) mission crew this means they are now “off station”. The screens are switched off and the documents filed away, the tactical director is already preparing his report. The radar technician checks the radar once again in a last test and notes down any errors, which can be traced down to the level of failed computer boards.

Anyone who did not have the time prior to the exercise is now heating up their food. A few of the crew are reading a book to relax. “True, it was a simple matter today,” concedes Captain Verlande. However, on larger-scale exercises, a lot more is required of the crew. Then it becomes apparent whether or not they have mastered their equipment fully. “You have to hold in your head the functioning of countless switches and buttons with up to five levels of menus, otherwise it would not be possible to respond quickly,” Peter Verlande explains. Again, the surveillance section must be correctly coordinated with the fighter controllers and amongst themselves. The work is allocated on a flexible basis. As well as dividing it up on a geographical basis, functional assignments such as control of the tanker aircraft or the command of different attack forces are also normal.

In any event, the “screen work” becomes quite challenging when the mission is not as short as this one, but instead the team has to remain in the operational area for several hours. As Captain Verlande points out, “We are prepared, for example through autogenic training, for working at a demanding level for between six and eight hours with short breaks.” To keep their skills current, the crew must complete a minimum of 12 flights per year, with at least one every 45 days.

The missions used to be flown not only from Geilenkirchen but also, under regular deployments, from the forward bases in Örland (Norway), Trapani (Italy), Aktion (Greece) and Konya (Turkey). Such deployments have become less frequent, but new tasks have been added. Since 2001, the NATO E-3A's have flown at least 2,250 hours for the purpose of airspace surveillance for over 30 major events ranging from a visit by US President Bush to the Catholic World Youth Day in Cologne, quite apart from the Olympic Games in Athens and the recent Winter Games in the vicinity of Turin.

On the latter occasion they worked alongside an E-3D team from the Royal Air Force so as to ensure that there were no gaps in the radar coverage, especially in the Alpine valleys. The area to be monitored was small, but the events ran every day from morning to late in the evening, requiring two aircraft plus a reserve.

During the forthcoming Football World Cup in Germany, the effort allocated is expected to be considerably greater due to the long distances between venues and the scheduling of the games in the afternoons and evenings. Two orbits will probably be necessary, employing five aircraft, one of them a reserve, to ensure that the airspace above Germany is properly monitored without any gaps. Any flights into the restricted areas around the stadiums (5.5km radius up to an altitude of 1,525m, but, depending on the security situation, up to a radius of 55km) are therefore certain to be noticed. What the responsible security authorities do with the information, however, remains a quite different matter, given that the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled out any shootdowns.

From page 48 of FLUG REVUE 6/2006

Last updated 10 May 2006

FLUG REVUE, Ubierstr. 83, 53173 Bonn, Germany