Northern Lightning 2022 - August 8-19

[milscanwi]

This year's big exercise in central Wisconsin is about to kick off. Part of the fun each year is to figure out which flying units are coming - the press release mentions a few:

• 115th FS (F-16) from Madison, WI
• 128th ARW (KC-135) from Milwaukee, WI
• 162nd Wing (F-16) from Tucson, AZ - interested to see which squadron(s) come
• 58th FS (F-35A) from Eglin AFB, FL
• 179th FS (F-16) from Duluth, MN
• 94th FS (F-22) from Langley, VA

Other possibilities:

• 175th FS (F-16) from Sioux Falls, SD - an early posting of the press release lists the 114th FW, but perhaps they were a late cancellation.
• VFMA-112 (F/A-18) from Fort Worth, TX - the press release was linked on MAG-41's FB page, and one of their KC-130J landed at MKE today.

Perusing arrivals at Volk Field (KVOK) listed on FlightAware and RadarBox, this year's adversary aircraft seem to be:

• 71st FTS (T-38) from Langley, VA - at least three landed on Friday.
• ATAC Mirage F1 - at least one landed on Saturday. They will be new participants this year as Draken's L-159s were the contract adversaries in past years.

I've got my scanner loaded up with frequencies to listen in - we can often hear what's going on in the eastern portion of the range from our house. Several frequencies were active over the past week when F-35B's from VFMA-211 were (we think) training in the range. We'll be driving out to Volk for some spotting and scanning early this week. Then we'll see who is actually based at Volk - typically the F-16's from 115th FS, 175th FS, and 179th FS fly from their home bases each day.

 

[evilbrad]

Under Wisconsin there's a regional thread milair 2022 Mil 2022