USA IV 2024
For years the A-10 has been subject of extinction. However, 2024 saw another edition of the famous Hawgsmoke exercise. Every reason to pay a visit to the United States and watch the Warthogs still going strong!
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On Sunday 8 September 2024, the participants gathered at Schiphol for the flight to Phoenix. The main goal of this tour was to visit the activities surrounding the biennial exercise Hawgsmoke 2024. This edition was organised by the 47th Fighter Squadron ‘Dogpatchers’ stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base.
After the usual flight delays that seem to occur nowadays we arrived at Phoenix the cars were picked up and we headed to our first hotel near Luke Air Force Base.
Luke AFB on Monday. In addition to a large number of Lockheed-Martin F-35A aircraft, a handful of Lockheed-Martin F-16s are also based at this base and we would be standing in the landing on Monday 9 September 2024 to be able to photograph the flying aircraft. During this successful day, in addition to a large number of F-35As and a modest number of F-16s, there were also some Mirage F1 and F-16 aircraft from ATAC, a civil provider of adversary capacity.
From Luke Air Force base it was still a short drive to the Tucson area where we could move flexibly between Tucson International where a Fighter Wing with F-16s is based, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base where a Fighter Wing and an Air Force Reserves Fighter Squadron Republic A-10 Thunderbolts are stationed and of course the AMARG aircraft storage.
We started on Tuesday 10 September 2024 with a visit to Tucson International because we had heard that the participating aircraft for the Hawgsmoke 2024 exercise would arrive on Wednesday. There was plenty of flying activity at Tucson International that day and we were able to photograph a modest number of F-16s that flew their operational missions that day. Because there have been some recent changes, there are a number of F-16s that are still flying with their ‘old’ markings, which resulted in a large variety of tail coding. There was also one brand new F-16 flying for the Slovak Air Force, which could be photographed. After a successful day, we went back to the hotel for a good meal and a good night’s sleep.
The next day, Wednesday 11 September 2024, we also started early in the morning at Tucson International. We had heard that 8 F-16s would leave early for a temporary deployment and for the occasion there were two KC-135 tankers as air-air refueling support for the ferry flight. We also had the information that the participating aircraft for Hawgsmoke would not arrive until between 11:00 in the morning and 16:00 in the afternoon. This gave us the opportunity to capture the eight departing aircraft and the entire morning mission before leaving for Davis Monthan Air Force Base. We arrived there around 11:15 and there was plenty of flying activity by the 47th Fighter Squadron with the morning mission just returning at the time we arrived. During the day we were able to photograph all Hawgsmoke participants in the approach.
On Thursday 12 September 2024, it turned out that presidential candidate Donald Trump would visit Tucson. For safety reasons no flights would not be made between 10:00 and 14:00 until Trump had left again. For that reason the group was divided into three groups. The first group would leave early in the morning for a flight over AMARG, the second group would visit the Pima museum and the third group would do some photography around the AMARG. It turned out early that there were minimal flying activity at Davis Monthan Air Force Base and the first delivered EA-37B Compass Call II could be photographed. At 2:00 PM we gathered again at the parking lot of the Pima museum and drove to the approach to photograph the take-off and landing aircraft. Also that day a missing man formation would be flown and we drove to a park to photograph the missing man formation. Then we went to the hotel to charge the batteries for the next day.
On Friday 13 September 2024, we would visit the operational range where live-firing activities would take place for Hawgsmoke, where we would photograph the participating A-10C Thunderbolts at the control tower during shooting. We had to report early to drive from Davis Monthan Air Force Base to the Barry M. Goldwater range near Gila Bend.
We arrived at the range around 11:00 and after a short instruction the first groups of Thunderbolts reported. Each participating squadron sends four aircraft that fly the course and perform the shooting exercises. The results are scored and determine the ultimate winner. We were allowed to stay on the range for a few hours and during that time we were able to photograph the groups of four aircraft while they were performing the shooting exercises.
After leaving the range we drove to the last hotel near Williams Gateway to see if there was any possible transient traffic parked on the platform on Friday afternoon. However, due to the heat, there was nothing there and nothing was expected. So, we decided to go to the hotel.
The next day (Saturday 14 September) we went to the airport to start the journey to Schiphol, where another successful 4Aviation tour was completed on Sunday 15 September in the morning.
