KC-135s Staying At Rickenbacker

Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base will continue operating the KC-135 'Supertanker' after Air Force officials decided that  Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire will be host to the new KC-46A refueling aircraft. Despite the efforts of the base and local government officials to be selected, the 121st Air Refueling Wing will keep with the KC-135R for the time being. The 121st ARW can be heard flying on a nearly daily basis on 238.800 and local ATC frequencies.

THE HERCS ARE BACK!

Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Joseph Harwood

After decisive hard work by Ohio lawmakers, the 179th Airlift Wing at Mansfield was spared the BRAC chopping block and has received a new directive by regaining the C-130H 'Hercules' mission. The four C-27J 'Spartan' aircraft the unit has been flying the past several years will be divested. The first two of eventual eight C-130s arrived at Mansfield-Lahm Air National Guard Base to great fanfare on Friday May 24, 2013.

The two C-130Hs, from the Alaska Air National Guard's 176th Airlift Wing arrived with new tail colors representing their new Ohio home. 82-0054 and 82-0056 landed around 1700 Local Time. One was sporting the state flag of Ohio, the other the Ohio State Buckeyes flag in the tail stripe. The 179th is slated to receive the final and eighth C-130H by June of 2016. The new mission will add 200 new jobs to the Mansfield base.

Ohio Bases To Lose Aircraft

The Air Force recently announced that many cuts were coming to the service in an effort to reduce costs and size of forces. These cuts will appear to hit several bases in the Buckeye State hard. In particularly, Mansfield. Cuts call for the 179th AW to lose all four of its C-27J Spartans to retirement, two of which are currently deployed to Afghanistan. The 179th AW just received and started flying the C-27J last summer. Within the next year, some 3,900 active duty, 5,100 Air Guard and 900 Air Force reserves will be cut overall.

Ohio lawmakers, including Senator Rob Portman (R) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D) are working hard to minimize the impact on Ohio.

The Ohio National Guard's 121st ARW based at Rickenbacker International is slated to lose six of its KC-135 Supertankers.

SPARTANS HEAD OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME

The 179th AW airmen have headed to Afghanistan for the first-ever deployment of the Air National Guard's new C-27J transport aircraft. The 179th will join up with units from Georgia and Oklahoma to work with the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Using the new C-27J Spartans for airlifts and airdrops to provide direct support to U.S. Army ground units. The 179th AW was the first air national guard unit to receive the new Joint Cargo Aircraft as reported here on the Ohio Area Milcom Blog in August 2010. Their deployment overseas will last nine months.

Mansfield Goes Spartan!

Some people may find Friday the 13th to be an unlucky date. For the people of Mansfield, Ohio, it could be their luckiest one. It was on Friday August 13th that the 179th Airlift Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard accepted the first of four new C-27J Spartan aircraft that the unit is transitioning to from the C-130 Hercules aircraft they have been flying since 1976. This move is a result of the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 2005. The Alenia built C-27J Spartan is a medium sized military transport aircraft ordered as the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) for use by all United States military.

The C-27J is an advanced version of Alenia Aeronautica's G.222, using the engines and systems from the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules. An estimated crowd of around 800 friends, family, local legislative and high ranking air guard officials attended the ceremony. The ceremony closed with the christening of the first plane as "The Spirit of Mansfield". By February 2011, unit commander Colonel Gary McCue states the 179th should have four of the C-27J Spartans on base. U.S. Senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown promises to relentlessly pursue having Mansfield designated as a national training base for the new aircraft. This promises to provide Ohio Area Milcom listeners more monitoring opportunities in the years to come.

Bad News For Springfield - The Dutch Move to Tucson

The Dutch Daily News is reporting this morning that the Royal Netherlands Air Force will return to Tucson International Airport for pilot training with the 162nd Fighter Wing. For the past five years the Dutch have been training with the Ohio National Guard's 178th FW at Springfield-Beckley ANGB. The OHANG has been in long term negotiations with the RNLAF, but the Dutch have decided to return to Tucson instead. They will base 14 of their F-16 aircraft there at Tucson beginning in January 2011 just as they have at Springfield since 2005.

This is bad news for milcom monitors here in southwest Ohio who are used to hearing daily action in the local Military Operations Areas that are nearby. The 178th FW has been slated to disband in accordance to the 2005 BRAC. Area officials have been trying to negotiate a new contact to keep the Dutch at Springfield into the future,. a future which is now up in the air...so to speak.

178th Heads to Hungary

For the first time since 2001 around 100 members of the 178th Fighter Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard based at Springfield will fly overseas to Kecskemet, Hungary. The 178th will participate with the Hungarian Joint Force command as part of a two-week training exercise. Most of the members will fly separately, with the fighter jets to follow. Originally the jets were to have left on Thursday April 22nd, but the flight lane disruptions from the erupting Iceland Volcano have delayed that. Look for the jets to take-off in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning the 25th. The 178th normally use the callsign "BUCKEYE" for transit outside of Ohio.

OPENING DAY FLYOVER

Four F-16s from the Ohio National Guard's 178th FW based at Springfield-Beckley MAP will conduct a pre-game fly over of Great American Ballpark. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:10 PM so expect the fly over few minutes before then. Keep an ear on CVG frequencies and Indy ARTCC as well as air to air in the 138-143 MHz range.

Try these for activity:

118.300     CVG Tower
118.850     DAY pproach/Departure
120.700     SGH Tower
123.875     CVG Approach
123.925     ZID ARTCC Merwyn RCAG
126.650     CVG Approach
128.700     CVG Approach
254.250     CVG Approach
281.400     ZID ARTCC Merwyn RCAG
290.500     ZID ARTCC Merwyn RCAG
363.150     CVG Approach
383.100     SGH Tower

Photo courtesy of Blues Skies Aerial Photography

SPRINGFIELD NOT GETTING SINGAPORE JOBS

Springfield ANGB was hoping to land a contract training pilots of the Singapore Air Force. Instead those jobs will be going to the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard based at Tucson. The reason for this, is that it costs between $900,000 and $1.2 million less to train per pilot.

Springfield has been hosting the Royal Netherlands Air Force since 2007 and that contract expires this fall, it is currently being negotiated to extend the RNLAF training. When that 10 year Base Realignment And Closure mission as a training base ends, 150 full time jobs and the base itself are at risk of being lost. Everyone from local politicians to the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff are committing themselves to keep the base open and operational. One of the cost factors involved with Singapore not coming to Springfield is that they would have to lease the jets to fly. The 178th FW is slated to lose all of it's F-16 aircraft in accordance to the BRAC directives.
In the meantime daily training sorties continue to provide local milair enthusiasts some interesting monitoring.

Recent Area Loggings

Here are some recent intercepts from area monitors:

From Randy True, W4RTT


240.350    Blue Ash Control
291.725    Cleveland Center
139.625    Stings 11 & 12, Yoder 22 & 32,
139.975    Gutter or Cutter 32, Delta 2120
141.825    No Call signs, but they definately sounded Scotch,
           One was dead on Sean Connery.
           SNAKES and ATOMICS in R-5503 at 9:25 to 9:45 local
           time. ATOMICS switched to 269.275.

138.275     These sounded like flights just passing through.
139.900




----

Alex K. N8UCN


344.600    SENTRY 61 (Tinker, AFB, OK) W/ WPAFB Metro Requesting WX
           for Tinker AFB. Later, Sentry 61 gave Pirep. 1750z
240.350    178th SABER FLT checking in after takeoff. 1805z
288.700    AWACS aft call of DRAGNET VICTOR making comm checks on
           frequency.1820z
254.700    DRAGNET VICTOR comm with ATC, with intentions on making the
           Red Hill MOA, 1823z
287.450    Repeated electronic chirps heard form DRAGNET VICTOR.
           Obviously a Data link freq, 1325z
289.300    MACE CONTROL and DRAGNET VICTOR coordinating exercise for
           COLT Flt. 1330z
260.900    DRAGNET VICTOR Calling HUNTRESS w/ comm checks for
           exercises at 1340z
228.900    DRAGNET UNIFORM Tried to establish comms with Huntress with
           no joy. Multiple calls go on for 10 mins. Finally contact is
           made with 180th FW, STING FLT out of Toledo Express APT.
           DRAGNET UNIFORM gave a ground brief and Core checks.
360.775    DRAGNET VICTOR calling INDY ATC with intent of working
           COLT 41-44 in the Red Hills MOA.


238.800    MANIAC calling "Maniac Control" for en-route information and WX
           at 1900z.

----

autobag@fuse.net


336.100    (AR-455) traffic tonight between 7:30 and 9:15 PM local.
           Callsign "5044" told he had four in trail, heading down to
           block. Flt. level 20, and had contact.

343.250    (AR-633) Unidentified traffic. Same period of time. Don't
           know if this was related to the other mission.

           Bengals Game (12/6) Flyby Catch. Heard this traffic starting at
           12:35 to 13:02 local. Couldn't make-out the two syllable
           prefix before the 41 call sign. Had visual over Southern
           Campbell County, KY. They looked like two F-18 Super Hornets.

254.250,    "xx xx41" "flt. level one zero proceeding to the southwest"
254.250,    "xx xx41" "request overhead flyover"
254.250,    "xx xx41" "roger clear for 18 left"


----

John Denny


252.100   MASH 83 airborne out of Grissom ANG.  He asked if they could
          relay to his receivers that he was an hour early and if they
          could be there early that would be great. There were at least
          4 in the BUCKEYE at that time using BLADE & ATOMIC callsigns
          at 2300z.

===
Thanks to all, keep them coming!

178th FW Will Conduct A Memorial Day Fly Over

This year the City of Blue Ash will host a couple of special guests for their Memorial Day Parade and Concert. The 388th Army Band will be the featured military band for the 57th annual Blue Ash Memorial Day parade. The band will be performing a free concert at 6:00 PM on Sunday the 24th in the Blue Ash Towne Square in addition to the parade on Monday. The parade starts at 10:15 AM near Reed Hartman Highway and Cooper Road then travel east on Cooper to Kenwood, south on Kenwood to Hunt and east on Hunt to the Veterans Memorial the parade should end around 11:30 AM.

The other special guest for the parade will be a flyover of the 178th Fighter Wing/306th Squadron of the RNLAF from Springfield-Beckley ANGB during the parade.

Monitor, KSGH and Cincinnati ATC frequencies for the fly over:


120.700         KSGH Tower VHF
291.775         KSGH Tower UHF
118.850         Dayton Approach/Departure
327.125         Dayton Approach/Departure
269.000         Indy Center London RCAG
281.400         Indy Center Merwyn RCAG
123.925         Indy Center Merwyn RCAG
121.000         Cincinnati Approach/Departure
123.000         Blue Ash CTAF
124.900         Cincinnati Clearance Delivery
240.350         123rd ACS OH Air National Guard Blue Ash




Try a search of the 225-380 MHz, for other possible frequencies, and
remember to comment here on anything you find.

Local 123rd ACS OHANG Heading to Iraq

Members of the 123rd Air Control Squadron of the Ohio Air National Guard based at Blue Ash Airport have been called to active duty and will soon deploy to Iraq. They will operate an air traffic control center and provide radar data to ground troops on military air traffic.

The 123rd ACS controls the Brush Creek and Buckeye Military Operations Areas (MOA) [R-5503 A/B] located to the east of Cincinnati.

179th Airlift Wing Gets A New Mission

The Ohio Air National Guard's 179th Airlift Wing base at the Mansfield-Lahm Regional Airport has officially received new orders from the U.S. Air Force. Originally the 179th was to be disbanded as recommended by the 2005 Base Relocation and Closure Act. They will still lose all eight of their C-130 aircraft by 2010. Beginning in 2012 they will start receiving an as yet disclosed number of new C-27J Spartan joint airlift aircraft. During the transition however they will remain active flying the C-21 Learjet. The base was saved from closure with efforts by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and other local leaders working with the Ohio Air National Guard officials.

Further good news is that the 179th could possibly become the formal training wing for the C-27J. In the meantime you can still monitor the 179th on the following frequencies:


119.8000 MANSFIELD TOWER
121.8000 GROUND
122.9500 UNICOM
124.2000 MANSFIELD APPROACH / DEPARTURE
125.3000 ATIS
127.3500 CLEVELAND APPROACH / DEPARTURE
297.5000 HERC COMMAND POST
317.7000 CLEVELAND CENTER
325.8000 TOWER / GROUND
390.8000 APPROACH

The Flying Dutchmen in Ohio Skies

On Tuesday May 8th in the 9 - 11 AM time frame we heard the first training session flown by the Royal Netherlands Air Force over the Buckeye State. We were unable to catch a callsign, but there seemed to be at least 3 pilots using a combination of Dutch and accented English. Nearly all of the communications took place on the 178th FW Air Tactical frequency of 143.875. The RNLAF Squadron 306 training over Ohio has begun!

180th FW Night Operations

The 180th FW out of Toledo are conducting night ops in Brush Creek MOA as of 10:00 PM Thursday. They are using their standard callsign STING on the following:

139.6250 -- Air to Air
141.6000 -- ACM
291.7250 -- Cleveland Center
338.9000 -- 180th FW Command Post

NEW Frequency for the area 240.3500 MHz

For the past week or so, area monitors along with myself have
caught a new frequency active; 240.3500 MHz is BLUE ASH CONTROL. This is being used by the 123rd Air Control Squadron, Ohio Air National Guard based at Blue Ash Municipal Airport in Cincinnati for Air Combat Maneuvers (ACM) for R-5503A/B Brush Creek and Buckeye MOAs. This new frequency is providing some great listening for the area, and should become even more active when the 178th begins training the Dutch pilots in May.