Atsugi pilots defy bad weather
to get bombing training at Guam
By Donovan Brooks, Guam
bureau chief
Donovan Brooks / Stars and Stripes
Cmdr. Dave Emich, of VFA-27, signals that he is starting his auxiliary power unit
Sunday at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. Emich was leading seven other pilots back to
Atsugi, Japan, where they are based. |
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Bad weather couldn’t stop
Navy pilots from dropping 150,000 tons of bombs and missiles during five days of training.
The pilots — from Carrier Air Wing FIVE at Atsugi Naval Base,
Japan — traveled to Guam for the unrestricted bombing runs.
The fighter squadrons face tight restrictions on ordnance they can
carry and drop in Japan, where they create temporary ranges over the ocean by dropping
smoke devices, which are then used as targets for bombing practice, said Lt. Jeff
Soricelli, an assistant operations officer.
But Guam is 20 minutes away from the Navy’s Farallon de
Mendinilla range, 150 miles to the north.
“To actually roll in on an island, line up, see your bombs drop,
it’s great for efficiency," Soricelli said.
The air wing’s units patrol the Pacific as part of the USS Kitty
Hawk carrier group.
Squadron VFA-27, with eight F-18s, and squadron VF-154, with six
F-14s, completed five days of training at Andersen.
“We generally come here because of the good weather,” Cmdr.
Dave Emich, of VFA-27, said Sunday as he prepared to lead seven other pilots back to
Atsugi.
But the units learned that August, typically in the middle of
Guam’s rainy season, might not be the best time to train at Andersen, said Lt. Scott
Smith, who flew to Farallon on Sunday morning but couldn’t drop his bombs because of
the weather.
It was the units’ first August visit, he said.
Even though heavy rain had curtailed planned bombing practice over
Farallon by about 30 percent, Emich said he was satisfied with the work the squadrons
accomplished, dropping about 300,000 pounds of live and inert bombs and maverick missiles.
As Emich prepared to take off, about 65 other wing members were
preparing to land at Andersen. Members of F-18 squadrons VFA-192 and VFA-195, with eight
planes apiece, are training at Andersen this week, Soricelli said.
About 500 members of the wing and the Kitty Hawk are making the trip
to Guam this month. The wing brought Kitty Hawk munitions handlers to build up and load
bombs stored at the Navy’s ammunition depot on Guam, Soricelli said.
Andersen, a contingency operations base with no fixed-wing squadrons
of its own, has provided excellent support for the wing, Soricelli said.
“They’ve bent over backwards to help us get what we
need,” he said.
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