“The F-14 pilot came back and said in an excited voice, ‘Target, nose, 12 miles [19.31km] hot, am I cleared to engage?’ and again the E-2 stuttered ‘Sta-Sta-Standby’ just as my Mode 4 sweep came back as friendly! The F-14’s immediate response to the E-2’s transmission was ‘Fox 1’,” Bill Richards, former E-3 “Sentry” Airborne Warning and Control Systems weapons officer with 552nd Air Control Wing
The E-3 Sentry is an airborne warning and control system, or AWACS, aircraft equipped with a platform for surveillance, target recognition, and tracking under integrated command and control battle management, or C2BM. The aircraft gives the Joint Air Operations Center a precise, real-time depiction of the battlespace. In the course of joint, allied, and coalition operations, AWACS provides situational awareness of friendly, neutral, and hostile activity, command and control over a designated area of responsibility, battle management of theater forces, all-weather surveillance of the battlespace, and early warning of enemy actions.
The E-3 demonstrated its superiority as the world’s top C2BM aircraft during Operation Desert Storm, the campaign that took place between Jan. 17, 1991, and Feb. 28, 1991, with the goal of liberating Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion.
17 NATO and USAF E-3As participated in Operation Desert Storm, which started on January 17, 1991. Of these, 11 were stationed in Riyadh, three at Incirlik, and five RSAF E-3s were also positioned there. A fourth reserve aircraft was in the air to serve as an immediate airborne replacement should one of the three primary aircraft fail due to a lack of serviceability or an inability to refuel. The same three orbits that had been flown during Operation Desert Shield were maintained on a regular basis. In case communication with the Tactical Air Control Centre was lost for whatever reason, the USAF E-3s were equipped with an Airborne Command Element, a five-person team.
A RSAF E-3 was also flying in the area of Riyadh to coordinate, if necessary, the capital’s final line of air defense. In addition, an E-3 was sent from Incirlik to guard Turkish airspace and keep an eye on the assault aircraft moving around the Proven Force AOR. Sentry crews were also in charge of the aerial refueling tow lines, which they used to direct damaged and fuel-critical aircraft toward the closest tanker so they could return to base. In the event that a Coalition aircraft is shot down and its crew ejects, AWACS crews also coordinated the first stages of combat search and rescue (CSAR).
Bill Richards, former E-3 “Sentry” Airborne Warning and Control Systems weapons officer with 552nd Air Control Wing, recalled a mission during the first night of the war in Ian Shaw and Sergio Santana Beyond the Horizon The History of AEW&C Aircraft:
“My first mission (one of three I flew in the first 64 hours of the war) was to the western AOR. Several exciting things happened. The first involved the E-2Cs from the Red Sea and two Navy packages that hit the H-2/H-3 complex of airfields. Both were supposed to be controlled by the E-2s with AWACS as a backup. The first package generated some MiG activity as they ingressed and two MiG-21s got airborne. The E-2 controllers did not call them out until I initiated unknown tracks on them (E-2 radar over land really sucked). As soon as they saw the tracks they started calling out the bogies and two [McDonnell Douglas] F/A-18s engaged and shot them both down.
“Tracking friendlies over the target area was tough as they were attacking from all directions and thus egressing in all directions at high speed. This all set the scene for the next strike package. As they approached the target area they used the same tactic of attacking from different directions at once; they obviously knew that MiGs had been launched against the previous package. As they ingressed to the target there were no MiGs launched but the friendlies once again began to be difficult to track. An F-14 was capped about 20 miles [32km] south of H-2 and he picked up a radar-only track departing H-2 at high speed and he called it out on the radio. The surprising response from the E-2 was `Sta-Sta-Standby!’ I realized this wasn’t going well so I took a Mode 4 sweep of the radar-only target that was about eight to 10 miles [12.8-16.1km] south of H-2. A second later the F-14 pilot came back and said in an excited voice, ‘Target, nose, 12 miles [19.31km] hot, am I cleared to engage?’ and again the E-2 stuttered ‘Sta-Sta-Standby’ just as my Mode 4 sweep came back as friendly! The F-14’s immediate response to the E-2’s transmission was ‘Fox 1’. I grabbed every frequency I had at my console and screamed ‘Cease-Fire South of H-2. Friendlies only that area!’ I have no idea what occurred after that and hoped that if the F-14 really had fired a Sparrow that he heard me and broke the radar lock. I know several Navy aircraft did not make it back from that attack but have never found out if they were lost to ground fire or fratricide.
“The next event from that first mission was as the second package was egressing [and] they had to hit a tanker on the way out. The E-2 was never able to get them to the tanker and four of the A-6s declared emergency fuel. So I picked them up on 243.0 (Guard) and started vectoring them to Arar airfield. I was able to contact a US air traffic controller in the tower on Guard and was able to brief him and the A-6s on the situation. At that point, I split the A-6s up and gave them individual vectors to Arar, and set up a nice little sequence. Meanwhile, all my traffic on Guard attracted a US F-111 with a hydraulic failure and an RAF Jaguar with a generator out. Both requested vectors to Arar. So now I had six emergency aircraft on guard and on vectors to land at Arar. Thankfully they all made it in safely. I did get a little ribbing the next couple of days for hogging Guard that night and playing ATC.”
Photo by Kelly White / U.S. Air Force; PH3 Jeffrey Loshaw and Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Nathan Burke / U.S. Navy
