Rischieramenti ad Aviano  -  1979 / 1992  -  Deployments at Aviano AB

The Aviano Air Base has become famous anywhere having been the main airport from which air operations over former Yugoslavja were conducted; but in the previous years his role has not been so definite by the american authorities, at the point that after the end of the threat of the Warsaw Pact the Base was almost set for closure. This is the story of the deployments of USAF combat aircraft from the mainland to Aviano in the last years of the Cold War, covering also occasional visits of US based aircraft from detachments in Europe, starting from 1979. The only deployment in 1979 has been Coronet Bronco , when twelve 70th TFS/347th TFW F-4Es arrived here on saturday Feb.17 and the aircraft involved were:  

69-0268 69-0269 69-0271 69-0272 69-0284 69-0286 69-0291 69-0298 69-7212 69-7556 69-7561 69-7586 
 

all MY with blue fin stripe edged in white. They arrived as four flight of three for the break; the follwing day (sunday) 69-0268 was test flown, then the Phantoms spent the following two weeks as two ship flights practising with bomblets over the Maniago range, located only 15 NM from the airfield. All these machines have been later converted to F-4Gs. There have been some visits that year from fighters deployed in Europe; during the spring manouvres in Italy around eighteen AFRES F-105s belonging to 457th TFS/TH and 465th TFS/SH were on TDY at Gioia del Colle under “Coronet Palomino” and one of them made a flight from there to Aviano every day late afternoon. Only F-105D 62-4259/SH (may 17) and F-105F 63-8261/TH (may 22) were identified. It was amazing to see this large and heavy aircraft on take off as it kept the afterburner on until it was out of sight… Two other visits was on july 27 – four 62nd TRS/363rd TRW RF-4C comprising 66-0400, 0452, 0476 and 67-0449 all JO with red fin stripes from Alconbury (Salty Bee ’79) – and on september 7 – two 335th TFS/4th TFW F-4E/SJ comprising 67-0328 and 73-1183 from Crested Cap at Ramstein. 1980 was quiet until may 1 and 2 as it was the turn of Aviano to host the Salty Bee ’80, with the arrival of eighteen  91st TRS/67th TRW RF-4Cs comprising:  

67-0432 67-0433 67-0434 67-0443 68-0561 68-0587 68-0594 68-0606 68-0609 68-0611 69-0356 71-0251 71-0255 72-0146 72-0150 72-0154 72-0155 72-0156
 
all BA red fin stripe with white dots; all departed on may 31 to Alconbury, but only 16 made the whole trip to the States, as 0609 was seen again at Aviano in october still coded BA but without fin stripe and badge on the intake, and 0356 seen in november with AR codes but still with 67th TRW badge.A sign of a new era became evident during the summer, with the appearance on aug.8 at 8.30 pm local time of a flight of four unidentified 388th TFW/HL F-16As, first sight of the type at Aviano. A brief visit from two 336th TFS/4th TFW/SJ Phantoms (67-0208 and 71-1092) on august 30 was the last for that year, coming again from the Crested Cap deployment to Ramstein. The only sighting for 1981 has been a visit on september 11 of four 37th TFW/WW F-4Gs comprising 69-7201, 7231, 7566 and 7580 from an unknown deployment in Europe.
 1982 passed on without nothing of interest, while 1983 was again the year of the annual Salty Bee ’83 exercise, with the arrival on may 5 of the usual eighteen 91st TFS/67th TRW Phantoms; they were: 

67-0435 67-0440 67-0443 67-0454 68-0561 68-0587 68-0589 68-0590 68-0591 69-0352 69-0358 69-0359 69-0376 71-0259 72-0147 72-0149 72-0150 72-0156

all BA with red fin stripe and white dots; all the aircraft wore wrap around Vietnam camouflage and 0591 was marked 91st AMU. They departed for home via Alconbury on june 1. US based RF-4Cs were seen again here on july 1 with the visit of four 106th TRS/Alabama ANG from Coronet Joust at Coltishall; they were: 63-7745, 64-1036, 1044 and 1058 all red stripe excepting 1058 (yellow stripe). The first F-16 deployment to Italy involved Ghedi when some 430th TFS/474th TFW/NA F-16As arrived there late july; Aviano was used as diversion airfield throughout the deployment with usually couples of a/c practising low approaches before to turn back to Ghedi. F-16s identified were 80-0476, 0497 and 516 (july 26), 80-0497 and 0516 (july 27), 79-0389, 80-0515, 0476 and 0485 (august 3), 80-0489, 0515, 0476 and 0497 (august 4), 80-0476 and 0497 (august 5), 80-0489 and 80-0497 (august 8), 79-0389, 80-0485 and 0515 (august 9). All wore red fin stripes. The last sighting of the year was unespected; a number of 35th TFW/GA F-4Es were just deployed to Greece when the greek government apparently decided these aircraft were not welcome to their soil, so they were forced to begin quickly the trip back, using Aviano as support. They arrived all on friday sept 30 with a couple the following day; the identified Phantoms were: 67-0224, 0270, 0324, 0377, 68-0345, 0347, 0409 and 0448. During 1984 Aviano have had no aircraft on TDY, but was visited during the spring by four 107th TFS/MI Corsairs, of which A-7D 70-0989 and A-7K 81-0076 were identified; they were presumably deployed to Gioia del Colle. The other sightings were all 12nd TRS/67th TRW/BA RF-4C from Salty Bee ’84 on TDY at Zweibrucken. They were: 66-0444 and 67-0434 (may 25), 67-0432, 69-0357, 0359 and 0379 (may 31), 67-0458, 69-0357, 0379 and 71-0259 (june 2), 66-0444 and 67-0432 (june 3). The following year Aviano hosted Salty Bee ‘85, with the usual eighteen 91st TRS/67th TRW Phantoms arriving late afternoon on april 25 presumably with a direct flight from Bergstrom, as they were accompanied by a KC-10 every cell of six. They were: 

66-0393 66-0408 66-0419 66-0427 66-0472 67-0428 67-0432 67-0433 67-0435 67-0440 67-0452 67-0461 67-0466 68-0579 68-0591 72-0147 72-0149 72-0151
 
this time all in lizard camo. The KC-10 were: 79-0434, 82-0192 and 83-0082. They departed home on may 4. The only other sightings for that year were two 4th TFW/SJ F-4Es (74-1624 and 1631) visiting for the week end on saturday september 14.  Half of the year 1986 was without nothing based; things changed in the summer with the arrival directly from the States of ten 153rd TRS/MS ANG RF-4Cs on sunday jul 27 accompanied by KC-10As 79-1710 and 82-0190. They were: 
 

 65-0931 65-0945 66-0401 66-0418 66-0428 66-0430 66-0443 66-0449 67-0441 67-0442 
 

all in lizard camo without the KE  fin code they wore until little time before. They arrived late afternoon and as the weather was good they managed to go to the initial point for a break over the Base in a flight of four, followed by a KC-10, then after half an hour a cell of 3+3 with the other KC-10. The exercise was named Coronet Lake and the aircraft left Aviano on august 9. Prior of the end of the summer on Monday september 1 four 94th TFS/1st TFW/FF F-15Cs visited Aviano; they were: 80-0053, 83-0015, 0027 and 0033 blue fin stripe. The end of september saw the annual Display Determination exercise with Ghedi hosting another time the 430th TFS/474th TFW/NA F-16As, two of them (80-0499 and 0501 on september 19) and four more (80-0494, 0497, 0518 and 0539 on september 20) were redeployed to Aviano; 80-0497 was marked 430th TFS/AMU. They joined the other assets already on station to perform a mass take off for the benefit of Press and authorities followed by Base attacks performed by all the aircraft involved in the exercise; all this on monday september 22. The F-16As headed directly to Ghedi without to land at Aviano. 1987 has been a flat year, the only visitors being three 107th TFS/MI A-7Ds visiting probably from Gioia del Colle on may 14; they were 70-0989 (again!), 72-0188 and 0214. In 1988 the Base has been closed from march to september for the runway resurfacing works, but first there was the last Salty Bee ’88 exercise for Aviano involving the next to disbandment 91st TRS/67th TRW/BA, with the following seventeen RF-4Cs arriving on february 2:  

65-0927 66-0393 66-0408 66-0464 67-0433 67-0435 67-0458 67-0469 68-0579 69-0356 69-0358 69-0380 69-0384 72-0147 72-0149 72-0150 72-0156 
 

the latter a/c marked 91st AMU. They were all in the new egyptian one grey camo and wore red fin stripe with white dots excepting 67-0458 that was orange (12nd TRS) but was painted as the others soon after arrival.They all were gone by february 27, few days before the runway closure.  1989 has been a year during which the various aircraft on TDY in Europe made some week end trips to other Bases and Aviano was also involved. Friday april 14 saw the arrival of two 69th TFS/347th TFW/MY F-16As (80-0578 and 0593) from Coronet Krait at Gioia del Colle. The following day six 106th TRS/BH Al ANG visited from Coronet Hoop at Alconbury, serial as follows: 64-1033, 1038, 1041, 1077, 65-0854 and 0884. Saturday may 20 was the turn of two 12nd TRS/67th TRW Phantoms visiting from Salty Bee ’89 at Zweibrucken (68-0576 and 69-0376 both orange fin stripe), while sunday may 28 four 9th TFS/49th TFW/HO F-15As arrived from Coronet Fang at Wittmund; the serials were: 77-0070, 0083, 0106 and 0109. 0106 was marked 49th TFW while 0109 was 9th TFS all red stripe.The annual TDY for Aviano was the dozen 113th TFS/HF F-4Es arrived sunday june 11 late afternoon under Coronet Coil; the aircraft involved were:  

67-0350 67-0377 67-0384 68-0326 68-0343 68-0346 68-0405 68-0412 68-0418 68-0420 68-0463 68-0478  

68-0326 was marked 181st TFG, all were in egyptian one camo excepting 0343, 0346, 0420 and 0463 that were lizard, and all had red/white/blue fin bands. They landed one by one in IFR procedure as the weather did not permit the more spectacular break. They left for home on june 23. In 1990 it was all concentrated in the period late april/may; with the disbandment of the 474th TFW the choice for the periodical deployment to Ghedi has been the 421st TFS/388th TFW/HL and almost all the F-16Cs involved made a practice weather diversions low approaches to Aviano on april 30: they were 88-0421 (marked 421st TFS), 0438, 0443, 0444, 0450, 0459, 0467, 0470 and 0509 all with black fin stripe. On the same day but late afternoon was again the turn of the 153rd TRS/MS ANG with the arrival of ten RF-4Cs under Coronet Saddle as follows: 

65-0931 65-0935 66-0401 66-0423 66-0425 66-0428 66-0433 66-0478 67-0438 67-0442  

Three machines (0931, 0935 and 0428) were unmarked, while 0401 was still in lizard camo. One aircraft suffered a minor accident during a sortie, when shortly after take off it had a bird strike, losing part of the nose in the impact; without speed indicator available the aircraft was forced to follow another Phantom to reach safely the runway. All the aircraft departed on may 11 and this was the last TDY involving the venerable Phantom. The end of 1990 saw the build up of Desert Shield and Aviano was not involved in the operations, having been used for transit stops only by some 20th TFW F-111Es enroute to the Gulf. 1991 was the year of the Desert Storm, the hot zone was the Gulf  and with the end of the Cold War rumours suggested that Aviano was becoming redundant to the US administration. In fact that year was clear of deployments from overseas based aircraft. 1992 started in the same way, but with the breakdown of the former Yugoslavja Aviano was again in a strategic zone to control the events. The following deployments from the States seem organized to test the ability of the Base to host almost continuously deployments of different units, may the need arise… First to happen was Coronet Soldier, a detachment of twelve 465th FS/SH F-16s as follows:  

79-0329 79-0341 79-0359 79-0383 79-0426 80-0475 80-0476 80-0479 80-0489 80-0498 80-0506 80-0507 

Ten of them arrived on june 15 chased by KC-10As 79-1711 and 86-0038/SJ, while the other two (79-0341 and 80-0506) followed on june 19. 79-0426 was a two seat and 80-0507 sported 507th FG Co. markings. They sported a black fin stripe and had the not common occasion to fly missions for a week with two dozen between Tomcats and Hornets desembarked from the carrier Saratoga. These Navy’s aircraft flew very much during that week and as expecially the F-18 is a very noisy aircraft in landing configuration there have been many protests by the local population; they didn’t agree with the saying “jet noise, the sound of freedom”! Anyway the F-16s left for home on july 11.  Just few days and another deployment arrived, this time of eight 68th FS/347th FW/MY F-16Cs arriving on july 15 from Ramstein. They were:  

89-2063 89-2064 89-2068 89-2071 89-2083 89-2084 89-2086 89-2090
 
all sporting a red fin stripe; 89-2068 was marked “68th FS”. They departed for home via Ramstein on august 13. The following day it was the turn of eight 93rd FS/FM F-16As accompanied by two KC-10As (79-0434 and 86-0038/SJ). Serials were: 

81-0802 81-0806 82-0900 82-0906 82-0908 82-0936 82-0941 82-0993
 
82-0900 was marked 482nd FW, while 82-0908 was 93rd FS Co. The detachment was unlucky as after few days of flying the hurricane “Andrew” destroyed their home Base Homestead in Florida. All the pilots and personnel were flown back home with a Tristar and the Aircraft were left unflown at Aviano until september 12 when they left for home.At this point no other US based Fighter Squadron were detached to Aviano, but the arrival on september 5 of the U-2R 68-10339 supported by various KC-135Qs was a sign that things were becoming serious. This was the first aicraft based to Aviano directly connected with the balkan crises, the first of many, but this is another story…
 
By Sergio Gava

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