The Navy’s newest Adversary detachment has just begun flying operations out of Naval Air Station Key West, Fla. Twelve F-5N Tiger fighter aircraft and their pilots will fly adversary training missions against carrier battle groups during their pre-deployment exercises.

“As a matter of fact, the detachment just finished their first operational tasking flying Air-to-Air missions against Strike Fighter Squadron-106 (VFA-106) Super Hornets, “said Jay Bolles, the Integrated Program Team lead for Adversary Aircraft in PMA-207.

“They flew 158 flights in two weeks with eight aircraft.”

The adversary pilots flying the Tiger’s are from Fighter Composite Squadron-13 (VFC-13). There are 20 pilots, eight active duty and 12 Navy Reserve and 40 enlisted members. This detachment at Key West is part of the same unit that also supports the Top Gun school at the Naval Strike Air Warfare Center at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev.

“The Navy tasked us with flying these adversary missions four to five times a year from NAS Fallon, Nev. but the costs of getting the adversary aircraft, pilots and maintenance staff out to NAS Key West was just getting too expensive,” said Bolles.

“In order to save money we decided to establish a detachment of 12 jets permanently down in Key West.”

This initiative began in August 2004 and the goal was to get the jets and people set up and operational in Key West by October 2005. But a few challenges were encountered along the way: the high cost of housing, getting people hired, getting support equipment for the aircraft and specifically, the four hurricanes that struck Florida this year. Those four hurricanes caused the aircraft and people to be evacuated from NAS Key West, where the detachment is based.

“Mother Nature did not cooperate with us at all; we had four major hurricanes and four evacuations. The last hurricane literally put the entire base under two feet of water,” said Bolles. “There were employees who lost just about everything, but they’ve managed to get back together to where we are today.”

Sikorsky supplies the maintenance team and the support equipment needed to operate the Tigers. “Sikorsky did a great job getting all the support equipment and all the other things needed to run a detachment in place down there,” said John Dennis, logistics support lead for Adversary Aircraft, PMA-207.

“I think that the teamwork shown by the program office, the Commander Navy Air Reserve Forces, VFC-13, Sikorsky and Northrop Grumman paints a really good picture and created a great partnership,” said Bolles. “A lot of people said there was no way that we were going to be able to pull this off and we did it. I don’t take the credit, it was the team that accomplished this and it’s a real success story.” [ANN Salutes Rob Koon, NAVAIR Public Affairs]

FMI: www.navy.mil