Nellis plans mock stealth combats

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2000 | 10:38 a.m.

Stealth fighters and bombers will be tested under mock combat conditions in the skies over Las Vegas in the next few weeks to help determine what caused an F-117A to crash in Kosovo, Nellis Air Force Base officials said today.

The testing, which starts Monday and continues through Nov. 10, will mark the first time the F-117 stealth fighter and the B-2 stealth bomber will be tested under night combat conditions during Red Flag exercises at the local base, Nellis spokesman Mike Estrada said.

It also will be the first time that the stealths will be so tested other than in actual fighting in the former Yugoslavia, where an F-117A crashed in March 1999 as NATO peacekeeping forces inflicted heavy damage on Serbian troops to pressure then-Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic back to peace talks.

"We want people who live near the base to know there will be a lot of noise between 2 and 5 a.m. as the planes leave and return," Estrada said, noting that testing under cover of darkness is necessary to determine how the Serbs may have detected the stealths, which cannot be detected by radar.

One theory of the cause of the Kosovo crash that will be tested is that Serbian military radar detected an unusually calm pattern of a block of air over several nights, then fired a barrage of weaponry at that spot and got lucky.

It is believed a surface-to-air missile caused the crash, in which the pilot was rescued by U.S. commandos.

The upcoming exercises will involve as many as 80 aircraft in a small area over the Nellis Range. The stealth fighters will operate as they normally do at night, making them virtually impossible to detect, Estrada said. During past Red Flags, stealths have been tested only under daylight conditions.

Col. Michael Droz, commander of the 414th Combat Training Squadron at Nellis, will hold a 1 p.m. news conference Thursday at the base to talk about the restructuring of Red Flag exercises, including the role that will be played by the stealths.

Because of the use of stealths in these exercises, allied nations that normally participate in Red Flag have not been invited for security reasons.

The Air Force denied the existence of the stealth for six years after it made its maiden flight in Tonopah in 1982. The once-top secret aircraft, including the plane that went down in Kosovo, were transferred in 1992 from Nevada to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Another topic Droz is expected to address is a new Air Force peacetime policy to give its airmen up to a year's notice before sending them overseas -- an effort that is expected to bring stability to their family lives and an issue of great significance to those stationed in Las Vegas.

Estrada said that the half dozen units participating -- down from 10 to 15 units of past Red Flags -- are destined to be sent overseas within a month after this exercise.