PH, US military aircraft conducted air interdiction and maritime target drills over skies of Visayas, Mindanao as part of Cope Thunder exercises.

The second iteration of the Cope Thunder exercise between the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and the United States’ Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) expanded to training areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.

This part of the joint drills focused on large-force deployment of aircraft.

Participating aircraft from the PAF included one C130 Hercules, one Huey helicopter, two A29B Super Tucanos, two T129 ATAK helicopters, and three FA-50 light fighter jets.

Three C-130 Hercules, six A-10 Warthogs, and nine F22 Raptors, meanwhile, came from the PACAF.

The aircraft departed Clark Air Base in Pampanga last July 11.

In the four days that followed, Filipino and American military aircraft conducted air combat and maritime interdiction tactics over the skies of Mactan, Cebu and General Santos City.

“We were excited to go down to General Santos. We were doing our interdiction operations at Mactan in Cebu. That was a good opportunity for us to integrate with the PAF and conduct forward and refueling procedures. It did enhance our interoperability and joint procedures with the PAF,” Capt. Liam Baldwin, PACAF A-10 pilot, told reporters at Clark Air Base in Pampanga on Monday.

“It was actually excellent training to get the mission plan and do planning procedures with our PAF partners,” he added.

One of the highlights of the exercise is the “hot refueling operations” where aircraft engines kept running throughout the process, allowing the aircraft to quickly return to its flight or mission.

On Monday, the PAF’s C-130 and the PACAF’s A-10 Warthogs returned to Clark Air Base from the Visayas.

Other aircraft were not able to depart the Mactan Airport due to bad weather.

The airmen said, the weather is always part of their contingency plans.

“Weather is a natural phenomenon. There are several levels of risk mitigation that we perform and with this, we respond accordingly in accordance with standard operational rules of the PAF and USAF,” Major Ronholph Ausa, PAF FA-50PH pilot, noted.

“For today, they had to perform the ferry mission flight coming from Cebu. There were a lot of contingencies that went in and most probably implemented some mitigation procedures, such as a proper crew briefing, weather planning deviation if required, as well,” he continued.

“For the 220th Airlift Wing, the safety measures implemented are the safety management system in flying the C-130. We are always considering the weight of the cargo, the weather en route and the fuel we have,” PAF C-130 pilot Major Virgilio Villanueva, for his part, added.

Aside from the air drills, PAF and PACAF personnel also conducted subject matter expert exchange (SMEE) on various topics.

“We went over some SMEE events on how we operate with 2- and 3-person crew upfront, describing to them how our computer takes over most of our engine monitoring and how we have to plan extra trust in our crew resource management within the 2 pilots upfront… to keep that high level of safety,” PACAF C130 pilot Captain Cole Wise said.

According to the Filipino pilots, the large-force deployment exercise will further prepare the PAF to be more responsive in “the broader spectrum of mission sets” that can be performed when required.

The learnings from the exercise can also be applied to real-life scenarios, they further said.

“We practiced operating in simulated hostile environments with simulated air-to-air and surface threats. What we learned is we are on a good path, we are presently building our capabilities,” PAF FA-50PH pilot Captain Philip Vincent Roy Freire noted.

“We can apply the training in Cope Thunder to real life, specifically in terms of interoperability when there comes a time we need to operate with the US, be it defending or addressing issues such as incursions, terrorism, and even search and rescue operations and HADR,” he added.

The Cope Thunder exercises started on July 2 and will run until July 21.

The bilateral exercise is engaging 687 PAF personnel and 585 PACAF personnel.

Its first iteration, which was held in May, focused on mission planning capabilities, as well as execution of defensive and offensive counter-air operations.

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