40th, 85th to deploy to Alaska

  • Published
  • By Samuel King Jr.
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  For the first time, the 96th Test Wing's 40th Flight Test Squadron will deploy to fully participate in an operational exercise.

The wing's only flying fighter squadron soars out to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska for the large-scale Northern Edge Exercise beginning this week to test the F-16 Fighting Falcon's new M7 Operational Flight Program software package. They will be joined by the 53rd Wing's 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron and the 416th FLTS from Edwards AFB, Calif.

"The squadron, and the F-16 enterprise itself, have a new opportunity in this deployment to Northern Edge," said Lt. Col. Tim Stevens, 40th FLTS commander. "Our deployments are typically small unique tests, but this represents a big step for us with such a large operationally representative environment. A setting like this affords countless ways to push the limits of the M7 system to ensure it's ready to be fielded."

The Northern Edge exercise provides a high tempo deployment-like environment with multiple services, aircraft types, ground units and jamming that cannot be replicated here. The two squadrons will deploy more than 90 operations and maintenance personnel with the F-16s into the joint- exercise.
 
"Flying at Eglin is typically a non-contested environment," said 1st Lt. John Vidoni, flight test engineer. "Even when we do test or train with additional aircraft, that number isn't comparable to the assets that will be at Northern Edge." 

The 40th FLTS will have the opportunity to test and evaluate how the OFP's system works not just with Air Force, but Army and Navy assets. The exercise also offers more types of enemy aircraft, surface to air missiles, and ship simulators the squadrons would be unable to test against here. The simulators provide jamming and create a dense radio frequency environment to stress the OFP's capabilities.

All of these assets simulate a real-world non-permissive combat environment. These simulations will stress the M7 software more and at a faster pace than standard prolonged testing here. Also, this type of testing will be done early enough in the M7 life cycle for the engineers to determine if there are any software issues and provide time to fix those issues before the new OFP is fielded. 

"Until now, the OFP has been in a limited and controlled environment," said Vidoni. "This allows us to test very specific requirements, and dig deep into the software.  Northern Edge provides an opportunity to test the OFP in an environment where it will eventually be deployed."

The deployment will also include a small number of F-15s that attend the exercise annually for standard software developmental and operational testing.