^^^11 PM ET^^^ NATO - Above America, keeps its radar eyes peeled

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Above America, NATO Crew Keeps Its Radar Eyes Peeled

Defense: Those aboard one of five AWACS surveillance jets hail from all over Europe and never expected to be guarding the U.S.

By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer

ABOARD NATO 25 -- When flying missions over the war-ravaged Balkans in recent years, the notion that their next assignment would be to America's heartland could not have been further from the minds of members of NATO's elite Airborne Early Warning force.

"I didn't even know where Oklahoma was," a German surveillance specialist named Mike admitted sheepishly as the NATO AWACS surveillance plane cruised toward the East Coast from its temporary post at Oklahoma's Tinker Air Force Base.

In fact, some of the corps' highly trained specialists had an image of the United States as a military superpower so formidable that it would never need assistance--especially not to defend its homeland.

"I was never in the States, but my impression was that America has everything--they've got all kinds of weapons. They can do everything themselves," said Mike, 30, who like other crew members on a recent NATO flight was forbidden for security reasons from giving his last name or hometown. Indeed, many of the operational details of the mission--such as the exact location of the patrol--were secret.

Despite the incredulity of many of the NATO crew members, they are now an integral part of an unprecedented U.S. military mission to protect the president and the people of the United States from future terrorist attacks, according to NATO and American commanders.

Their plane is one of five NATO AWACS aircraft that since Oct. 15 have been participating in "Noble Eagle," the surveillance of U.S. airspace that has been underway continuously since Sept. 11.

Their job is to work with military ground radar stations and civilian air traffic controllers to detect any malicious or errant aircraft and then direct fighter jets to intercept them.

The crews were deployed in the wake of the September terrorist attacks after NATO, for the first time, invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says that an attack against any member nation is an attack against all of them.

AWACS, which stands for Airborne Warning and Control System, gives military strategists a bird's-eye view that ground stations cannot provide. The most distinctive feature of the modified Boeing 707s is a massive disc-shaped antenna that stretches 30 feet in diameter above the fuselage. The NATO AWACS corps, based in Geilenkirchen, Germany, is the alliance's only multinational flying unit, with participants from 12 of NATO's 19 member nations, including the United States.

The U.S. fleet of 32 AWACS was stretched thin by the multiple demands of a war in Afghanistan, patrols over northern and southern Iraq and homeland defense. So Washington called on NATO for backup.

On the recent flight over the East Coast--a sortie dubbed NATO 25--a Belgian pilot, an Italian co-pilot, a Norwegian navigator, a Canadian radar specialist and 10 other crew members from a variety of nations glided over the American landscape.

Ten days into their mission, the NATO crew members were still marveling about the unusual experience of patrolling a nation free of traditional warfare.

The "bad guys" they hunt for on their monitors are more likely to be commercial jets than fighter planes. There is no front line or border to guard. And the biggest threats they have faced in Oklahoma were a tornado and fast food.

For the U.S. members of the NATO force--many of whom spent several years assigned to Tinker--there is the added twist of being sent back home for active duty.

"I never thought that in my military career I'd leave my family in Germany and come back and do this," said J.R., 38, a weapons controller, who met and married his wife in Oklahoma. "I also didn't think I'd ever fly defensive missions over the United States. We always fly missions over other countries in trouble."

Like several other members of the crew, J.R. is impatient to fly sorties over Afghanistan.

In a war theater, J.R.'s job would be to direct fighter jets to their targets on the ground or guide them as they intercept enemy planes or missiles.

"I feel like I'm on the Super Bowl team but I can't travel for the big game," J.R. said. "I'm missing out on that."

But Jason, 30, who is one of the several crew members who study radar screens for unidentified or hostile planes, believes that no mission could be more important than his current assignment.

"After the terrorist attacks happened, it seems that this is just as important as fighting a war," Jason said. "We're the eyes in the sky for our family members."

As their aircraft flew above cities, farmland and forests, the cockpit crew talked about how gratifying it was for them to be asked to come to America's aid.

"I know it might sound silly, but when we arrived in the United States and the general was waiting to welcome me, I felt like your guys must have felt during World War II," Luigi, the Italian co-pilot, said. "Of course I cannot compare it--you did so much in World War II. But I felt that kind of satisfaction: I felt somebody needed my help. It was very gratifying."

Orazio, the Italian flight engineer, said he is especially glad to be playing a role because terrorist attacks touched him very personally. One of his cousins worked in the World Trade Center and should have been there on the morning of Sept. 11. "But like a good Italian, he was late," Orazio said.

Because of security constraints, Orazio has not told his cousins that he's part of the NATO mission protecting the U.S.

"Even though I can't talk to anybody about what I'm doing, I feel great inside," Orazio said. "There is no better sensation than the one you feel when you're doing something good with your colleagues. It's the best payment you can get."

Midway through its grueling mission, NATO 25 had left its patrol orbit for refueling when it was directed to chase down a suspicious airplane.

Within seconds, the pilot banked hard to the right.

"There's an unidentified airplane, so we're investigating it," said Eddy, the pilot.

Two jets were dispatched to intercept the plane but were called off after the aircraft was identified, according to NATO 25 crew members.

But the most taxing maneuver of the day, at least for the pilot, was the midair refueling, which enabled the crew to stay aloft for its 14-hour flight.

The AWACS plane joined the orbit of a tanker aircraft, flying about 1,000 feet below and just behind it. A long gas pump, called a boom, protruded from the tanker's underside. When the two planes were mere feet apart, the AWACS pilot, flying with one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttle, accelerated slightly to secure the connection.

"Contact," Eddy said.

The intensity of the flight crew, the surveillance specialists and the technicians as they patrolled the overcast skies made it clear that the operation is much more than an exercise.

"It feels a bit safer" than during a war, said Eddy, the Belgian pilot and commander of the mission. During a mission like this, there should not be much risk--to the crew or the population below--he added, "but after the 11th of September, I don't know anymore."

The U.S. commander of the unique AWACS home defense operation, Lt. Col. Robert A. Nuances, also recognizes the ambiguous quality of the mission. But he stressed that his forces approach it very seriously. "We attack this as a war mission" that is no less important than the efforts underway over Afghanistan.

"Just look at the consequences--the consequences of failure over there versus the consequences of failure here," Nuance said in an interview at Tinker.

Nonetheless, he conceded that it has been bizarre for him to command a war mission from his normal office and sleep in his own bed in a comfortable upper-middle-class Oklahoma suburb. Last weekend, he even took a day off and checked up on the operation by cell phone from a maze cut into a cornfield, a farmers' version of an English garden labyrinth, that he visited with his wife and children.

"Even now it feels surreal," Nuances said.

Like many of his fliers, Nuances is eager for front-line duty in Afghanistan.

" 'Enduring Freedom' is sexy," he said, referring to the mission's name. "When you're out there, you're in the fight. You're controlling the fighters. That's more along the lines of what we've trained for--day in and day out. We're waiting for our turn."

But for now, he and his 965th Airborne Air Control Squadron will patrol America's skies--with the help of NATO--from home.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

Answers

I was out looking up at the clear sky tonight..LOTS of planes in the air tonight, and clear.... so easy to see.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

I was sleeping. Had a busy day of running around.

Nice weather, lots of traffic.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001


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