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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-06-12, Page 13leisure, features and entertainment This is the ninth in a series of articles by Marion 1. Duke, editor of The Listowel Banner, following a Cana- dian Community Newspa- pers Association study tour of Canadian Forces in Eu- rope, the Canadian embassy in Bonn, Germany, and NATO's military headquar- ters at Mons, Belgium. Home of NATO's Airborne Early Warning (AEW) Force Command's E - 3A Component, NATO Air Base Geilen- kirchen, is located four km west of Gei- lenkirchen proper, in the Federal Re- public of Germany, adjacent to The Netherlands border. Surrounded by.farmfland and a natu- ral woodland preserve, the base was originally built by the British Royal Air Force after the Second World War. The British used the facilities as a fighter installation for various fighter squadrons from May 1953 until January 1968. The installation was then handed over to the German Air Force in March 1968. In August of that same year it be- came the home of° the German Missile Wing Number 2, equipped with Per- shing missiles and supported by the U.S. Army's 85th Field Artillery, de- tachment. After decidingto make the base the E -3A Component main operating base, a 'major construction program began in 1980 to modify operational and support facilities to accommodate the E -3A unit. In January 1980 the first Compo- nent personnel started arriving at the base. The Component's main operating base was handed over to NATO by the Germans on March 31,1982. The German Pershing Wing moved to Niederheid, north of Geilenkirchen. By 1984, the U.S. Army's 85th Detachment also moved to Niederheid. Of the 175 buildings on the main oper- ating base at Geilenkirchen, 26 are newly constructed and 82 of the remain- ing buildings were renovated. Major construction on the base that covers 1,530 acres, includes a new 10,000 -foot runway' that is 150 feet wide, new aprons and taxiways, and major refurbishment and extensions to two of the four existing hangars. We are informed that by mid -1985th Component will have about 2,282 multi- national military and civilian personnel assigned to it.. Immediately after lunch we set out to see as much of this base as we can on this sunny but chilly day. Unlike Canadian Forces Base Baden- Soellingen, there is no haze hanging over Geilenkirchen. The sky here is a brilliant blue and the air is fresh. CONSOLES AND SIMULATOR Breaking into three groups we take turns visiting the Component's, tape li- brary, the console training centre and the flight simulator before heading out to get a guided tour of one of the AEW aircraft. There isn'ta heck of a lot to see in the library, just rows and rows of canned tapes. .But the information is staggering — in more ways than one. The officer conducting tie tour tells us the library presently has about 11,400. tapes and is growing at a rate of 150;to 200 tapes per month. "`There are 12 fapes per mission," he says, "and about 27 missions are flown per week." The cost of each tape is ap- proximately 34 Deutsche Mark. The tapes are retained for a relative- ly short period, unless the_ flight has, presented some kind of Otoblem. Be- sides providing a record of any such problems, the mission tapes are used in training sessions. As d—happen irthe A.biIiion bytes o S Serving over 20,000 homes 'in Ontario's heartland. Crossroads—June 12, 1985 L orage The black markings of NATO's AEW 'aircraft are relieved in one detail. On the tail there is painted a stylized red lion. The Canadian pilot who has met the bus tells us the lion is Luxembourg's contribution to the program. It sounds like a joke until he explains the circum- stances behind the lion. With the Geilenkirchen base being so close to so many borders, he said, the registration of the aircraft posed a spe- cific problem. No nation was keen to take on the responsibility of registra- tion which carries with it liability in case of legal action. Finally Luxembourg agreed to regis- ter the AEW aircraft — and earned the distinction of fng the Luxembourg lion painted on t e tail. Normally 12 of NATO's 18 AEW air- craft operate out of Geilenkirchen. The remaining six are deployed to the Com- ponent's forward operating bases at Preveza, Greece; Trapani, Italy; and Konya, Tu key; or its forward operat- ing location at Oerland, Norway. The aircrew comprises a total of 17 which includes a flight crew of four (two pilots, one navigator and one flight engineer) , and a mission crew of 13. The mission crew includes: one tac- tical director, one flight allocators two weapons controllers, two surveillance control officers, three surveillance op- erators, one communications operator, one communications technician, one radar technician and one computer dis play technician. However, this number can vary ac- cording to specific mission, and the air- craft can carry up to 35 people. On board the specially equipped 707 one can see there wouldn't be much room to wander around with 35 on a mission. Each of these aircraft, besides nine consoles, carries tons ' of computer equipment. I "And if you think this is something," says the Canadian officer showing .us through the body of the aircraft, '"you ground section were put out of.commis- ---sion,-the officer replies there is a back- up facility off-site. "Within 24 hours the birds would be back in the air," he said. "There would be no real time lag." For Allied military personnel harbor- ,ing a fascination for computers, surely Geilenkirchen must be one of the most sought after postings anywhere in the world. Each AEW aircraft carries on board nine multi-purpose display .console mo- nitors. Basic qualifications for aircrew members operating the sophisticated equipment vary' with individual na- tions. Aircrews on AEW aircraft are not only multinational but include both men and women. Once they have been ac- cepted, the training period lasts 16 weeks. The language of operation is English. As we head toward the Canadian - made flight simulator, we meet the group just corning out. They are still excited. "Get him to give you some thunder and lightning," says Rick James of Bowmanville: From the outside the flight simulator resembles one of those leggy pieces of equipment the U.S.space program used to land on the moon. On the inside it is a replica of the cockpit of the Boe- ing 707. The pilot who takes us in for a landing is Italian. He gives us a bit of turbu- lence and some tog, but we don't spend -ABOVE = TFie aircrew of aNATO - 'A irborn e Early Warning aircraft comprisesa total of 17 per- sons, including a flight crew of four and a mission crew of 13. In the above photo a British Nimrod pilot joined the aircrew of the, specially equipped Boe- ing 707. Aircrews are multina- tional, and include bothmen and yvomen. RIGHT The endurance of the AEW aircraft which has a fuel capacity of 23,855 gallons is ,more than 10 hours unrefueled. However, each of the 18 NATO - owned aircraft is equipped with an air refueling capability. The rotodome on the tail of the air- craft is six 'feet thick and has a diameter of 30 feet. It rotates once every 10 seconds. BELOW - The flight crew for NATO's AEW aircraft consists of a pilot, co-pilot, navigator and flight engineer. Pilots assigned to the specially equip- ped aircraft have already logg- ed from 10,000 to 15,000 hours on 707's. Before flying the AEW aircraft they receive approx- imately pprox-imately 80 hours of training in the flight simulator. long in the simulator. What is surprising is that we get, in it at all, The simulator here is in use 16 hours per day and is booked 99 per cent of the time. One of our three groups still has to have a look and the people run- ning the equipment have just received 'the word some big -wig. from Turkey, is on his way to see it. Pilots assigned to NATO's AEW air- craft have already logged from 10,000 to 15,000 hours on 707s. They will spend approximately 80 hours in the simula- tor before actually flying the modified AEW 707. Outside the simulator area as we wait for our other two groups to complete this part of the tour, we chat with Maj. Jerry Guess of the U.S. Air Force who is our guide for the day.. . The Canadian -made simulator, he said, cannot be rated too highly. The first training sessions for NATO's AEW aircraft pilots were conducted at U.S. Air Force Base Tinker, Okla. "We have a sinnulator there too," Maj. Guess said. "It seems like a* lot of money — I think they run around $12 million. But when you stop to think of 111 what the loss would be if a pilot crashed one of those aircraft during training, ` the simulator is a bargain. It's a re- markable piece of equipment." NiNE 'ON GROUND It's a short bus ride over to the air- craft and we can't help but remark on how the fog ofthe morning has given way to bright blue skies with puffy - white clouds. But those cotton batting clouds can't hold a candle to the big white birds with their distinctive black markings- on the - ground. No one in -our group has been closer to an early warning aircraft than pictures of American Airborne Warning and Control System (AWAC) aircraft in news magazines. To suddenly come up- on a number of them parked in one area is an awesome sight. No one says a word as the bus is met by two Canadian officers in their dis- tinctive dark green uniforms, -but we've all counted the airplanes. There are nine of them. The two officers are going to give us a tour of one of the AEW aircraft. We are told we can only take photographs of the aircraft itself. We are not to point our cameras in any other direction and ,..we are to stay away from the tail sec- tion of the aircraft while we're on the ground. in other words, this is a restricted area. I've looked through the press kit supplied to us at the briefing by Maj. Guess. It contains,excellent photo- graphs of the aircrft and its• equip- ment, so I decide to leave my camera bag on the bus. it's a relief to ditch the bag and get back to just a note pad and pen. By the end of a long day' the business.of switch- ing back and forth from note book to camera can be a drag on the mind as well as the body. should see what's down below. That's where the real guts of this system are." The maximum take -off weight for the aircraft is 325,000 pounds and the fuel :- capacity is 23,855 gallons, weighing 155,061 pounds. It .can stay aloft for 11 hours with a full load. ."1 maximum time out of base is 12 hui 's. the officer says. "But each air- crat• 'so equipped with an air re- fueling capability." H grins, "Refueling can be very bumpy. Nn c rrv- wants to be in the back area whe 1' , happens." The aircraft also comes equipped with six bunk keds and a galley where crew members prepare their own meals and make coffee In reply to a question, the officer says that so far no decision has been made to carry parachutes. We are also informed the aircraft is specially equipped .to get rid of •heat which is hard on the computer system, NYLON IU)PE Up front in the cockpit we could be sitting back in the simulator, However, i notice something i didfi't have time to see in the simulator when we were com- ing in for the landing. Continued on page 7 Photographs Accompany- ing this article were supplied by the Public Information Office. Nato Air Base Geilen- kirchen, West Germany.