A nondescript airliner dubbed “the Patriot” lands at Kunsan Air Base, Korea, every Thursday to drop off about sixty fresh Air Force personnel at the Wolfpack—the 8th Fighter Wing. The aircraft, a charter, stays for an hour or so and takes off with an equivalent number of Kunsan veterans. Those arriving appear jetlagged from their fourteen-hour flight to Korea via Seattle, Washington. Those leaving say heartfelt goodbyes to friends. Officers at the base line up to welcome the newcomers and to thank those departing for their service. Newly arrived personnel destined for the 80th Fighter Squadron, one of two F-16 squadrons at the base, collect on one side of the ramp. An informal serenade ensues.

Beside a Korean Waterfall one bright and sunny day,

Beside a shattered Sabre jet a young pursuer lay,

His parachute hung from a nearby tree, he was not yet quite dead,

So listen to the very last words the young pursuer said:

“I’m going to a better land where everything is bright,

Where whiskey flows from telephone poles, play poker every night.

We haven’t got a thing to do but sit around and sing.

And all of our crews are women. Oh death, where is thy sting?”

“Beside a Korean Waterfall” and many other songs of varying degrees of decorum will be drilled into the memory of the newcomers in the days and weeks to come as they gather together for beers in their squadron hooch on Friday nights. (Hooches are small housing units converted into lounges or party shacks.) Those assigned to Kunsan face twelve months at one of the last truly remote assignments in the US Air Force. The small base, on the southwest coast of Korea, has no space for families. Whereas Osan Air Base, a much larger base about 120 miles northeast and very close to Seoul, gives officers the option of bringing their families, all US military personnel live at Kunsan without spouses or children. Their squadrons, therefore, become extended families.

Without the demands of family, pilots, maintainers, and other person-nel have little to distract them from the mission. Col. Scott West, the operations group commander of the 8th FW, sums up that mission: “Defend the base, accept follow-on forces, and take the fight north. Those eleven words make it simple for everyone on base to understand why they are here.”

Defend The Base

A tall hill called Big Coyote provides a complete view of the base from its southern tip. A twisty gravel road takes visitors to the top, which is fortified with machine gun nests and a howitzer. Patriot missile batteries are visible below. “If the North invades,” explains Capt. Jason Hokaj, an F-16 pilot from the 80th FS, “we can cut down these trees to have a clear shot at enemy forces coming across those rice fields to the east.”

Hokaj turns north and points to a razor-wired fence that runs along the coastline and marks the western perimeter of the base. “Rumor has it that North Koreans being trained for their special forces have to touch that fence to graduate,” he notes. The story carries more weight than the typical urban legend: mini submarines from North Korea run aground and get entangled in fishing nets off the South Korean coast with a disturbing regularity.

“I don’t doubt that the fence story is true,” says Lt. Col. John Fyfe, who commands the 80th FS. “The South Koreans are always uncovering special forces operations in the country. I’ll read about an infiltration from the north in the press every couple of months. I haven’t been here an entire year, but I have already seen two North-South altercations. When I first arrived, the South Koreans sank a North Korean boat that was in South Korean waters. A couple of months ago, the North Koreans sank a South Korean boat. The tension here is a lot higher than most places we can be stationed.

“Kunsan is like a deployed location near a front line,” Fyfe continues. “The demilitarized zone, the dividing line between North and South Korea, is only 100 miles north from Kunsan, about fifteen minutes in a jet. Base defense plays an important part of every exercise we take part in.”

Accept Follow-On Forces

Few air bases have the experience Kunsan has in accepting new forces. Those stepping off the weekly Patriot are in-processed faster than newcomers at other bases are shown where to park. “Everything is focused on getting people on board within hours of getting them off the plane,” notes Fyfe. “At other bases, the in-processing interviews and training classes can take weeks. The local checkout here happens very fast. The squadron has your full attention within a day of arriving. You don’t have to buy a house or rent an apartment here. You don’t have to enroll kids in schools, turn on the utilities, or get a phone. You can focus on the mission a lot sooner.”

“Taking on follow-on forces also means the 8th FW has to be prepared to accommodate five or more additional squadrons,” says West. “This means doubling up on rooms, erecting temporary shelters, and dealing with more aircraft on our ramps.”

The commanders of the two squadrons at Kunsan (the 35th FS Pantons and the 80th FS Juvats) decide which unit will get which pilot before he or she arrives. (Yes, Kunsan has female F-16 pilots.) “We try to balance the experience levels between the two squadrons and assign them equivalent instructor pilots, weapons officers, and night-vision-qualified pilots. We send majors and more experienced pilots to our operations support group where they can support wing-level planning.”

Kunsan is often the first operational F-16 assignment for newly minted F-16 pilots. “We have about eleven lieutenants in each squadron right now,” West explains. “That’s a large number. Kunsan is both a good deal and a tough assignment at the same time for these pilots. The air force won’t take pilots out of the cockpit until they are experienced, which is defined as 500 flying hours in a fighter. A pilot will accumulate more than 500 flying hours in a typical three-year first assignment. So they will be eligible for a nonflying assignment. After a year at Kunsan, they are guaranteed another three-year assignment. New pilots willing to put up with the rigors of Kunsan can stay in a cockpit for four years.”

Upon arriving, and after in-processing, new pilots get an introductory briefing from the wing commander (called the Wolf). The briefing includes a history of the Korean peninsula and the Korean War. More recently, newcomers take a bus north for a tour of the DMZ. They get detailed briefings on war plans. Pilots new to the Block 30 F-16s (80th FS) or Block 40 F-16s (35th FS) get simulator and academic training. The first flight for all pilots is a local area orientation.

“Pilots who have been instructors or flight leads get the orientation ride and then a check ride to recertify their status,” notes Lt. Col. Dave Ellis, the operations officer for the 80th FS. “Wingmen get a ten-sortie mission qualification training program, including air-to-air and air-to-ground training. Part of that training takes place in the airspace just south of the DMZ where F-16 pilots work with ground controllers from the Army in close air support training. We try to familiarize them with the whole country. The training takes two to three weeks and brings them to mission-ready status.”

Take The Fight North

Wolfpack war plans take the fight north in some of the oldest F-16s in the Air Force fleet, Block 30s built in the mid 1980s. The 80th FS at Kunsan and two F-16 squadrons at Cannon AFB, New Mexico, are the last active duty units in the Air Force to fly Block 30 F-16s. Kunsan’s Block 40 F-16s, flown by the 35th FS Pantons, were built more than ten years ago. However, age has little to do with capability these days when the Fighting Falcon is involved. Recent software updates to Block 40 F-16s allow the 35th FS to drop inertially aided munitions, such as the wind-corrected munitions dispenser and the joint direct attack munition. (The 35th FS dropped its first JDAM in September 2002.)

The Block 30 F-16s of the 80th FS have been transformed from dumb bomb droppers into precision attackers in the last year. “Our Block 30 F-16s were once considered a drawback for coming to the 80th FS,” explains Ellis. “We had some of the oldest F-16s in the active duty, and they could not fly with a targeting pod. They also had an older avionics suite. All that has changed in the last year.”

The 80th still flies the same Block 30 F-16s, but recent software upgrades and the addition of GPS allow those airplanes to drop laser-guided bombs and to function with targeting pods. The 80th flew with a targeting pod for the first time in January 2002. Pilots from the unit dropped their first laser-guided bombs (two GBU-10s) with targeting pods two months later. The entire squadron was targeting-pod qualified in August.

Until late fall 2001, the F-16 pilots from the 80th FS flew what is called mixed-block tactics with pilots from their sister squadron at Kunsan. Block 40 F-16 pilots from the 35th FS would use their targeting pods to direct laser-guided bombs released from the Block 30 F-16s from the 80th FS. “While mixed-block tactics allowed our wing to put more precision weapons on target, the approach usually required extended loitering times and re-attacks,” notes Capt. Alex Grynkewich, the weapons officer for the 80th FS. “Mixed-block tactics also require greater coordination between the two squadrons and more complex inflight communications. All of these factors lower hit rates.”

While an avionics software upgrade called System Capability Upgrade 3, or SCU 3, gave Block 30 F-16s the ability to carry precision-guided munitions, SCU 4 improved PGM capability by adding a combined global positioning and inertial navigation system. SCU 4 also allowed the jets to carry targeting pods. At about the same time SCU 4 was being installed in the Block 30 F-16s, a software upgrade for Block 40 F-16s called Tape 40T6 gave the 35th FS the ability to drop inertially aided munitions. “The Wolfpack has only eighteen targeting pods, and all of these were assigned to the Block 40 F-16s of the 35th FS,” notes Grynkewich. “Tape 40T6 allowed the Wolfpack to drop inertially aided munitions, lowering the reliance of the 35th FS on LANTIRN pods and freeing some of the pods for our Block 30s.”

Once the 80th FS pilots began flying with their own targeting pods, they had to train to new tactics. The tactics, called mixed-element tactics, had to account for limited number of pods and limited number of qualified pilots the unit may have at a particular time. Each two-ship flies with at least one pod, usually with the flight lead. The pair uses buddy-lasing attack tactics similar to mixed-block tactics.

“One big advantage of mixed element tactics, however, is that the pilots perform these tactics from within the same element instead of between two elements,” Grynkewich explains. “The situational awareness datalink made available with SCU 4 allows us to use a cooperative lasing mode, which further improves our hit rates. Cooperative mode lets me tag my wingman. In air-to-ground mode, my display then shows the munitions my wingman is still carrying and the laser code he’s using. It also shows his time to impact and time to release. It tells me when to start lasing the target. The system works almost as if my targeting pod is on the other jet, or as if his bombs are coming off my jet. The automation significantly reduces the amount of radio communication to get bombs on target. The datalink also increases my situational awareness, giving me the fuel state of the tagged airplane, the status of his air-to-air missiles, his callsign, airspeed, and relative position to my aircraft.”

But even mixed element tactics are considered an interim solution. The ultimate goal is to have every pilot qualified to operate a targeting pod and every aircraft equipped to carry a targeting pod. To reach that goal, the 80th FS invited two instructor pilots from Luke to Kunsan last summer to augment its own instructor pilot core. The unit upgraded all of its pilots in three weeks of concentrated training. “In our most recent combat effectiveness readiness exercise,” Grynkewich says, “we operated as a full-up targeting pod squadron. We still have limited targeting pod availability, but the hit rates exceeded our expectations. We saw a twenty percent increase in lethality over mixed-block tactics. For example, if we hit seven out of ten targets in MBT, we’re now hitting nine out of ten targets. The improvements change the way we will take the fight north. PACAF has three F-16 squadrons in Korea. All three are now capable of dropping precision-guided munitions. We made these improvements at little to no cost to the government.”

“The ITO, the integrated tasking order, or our war plan, has changed three times since I got here eleven months ago,” adds Fyfe. “It incorporated the mixed block tactics when I arrived. With those tactics, we could cover more target sets with fewer aircraft because of the precision weapons. The ITO changed again when we got our own targeting pods. Then it changed a third time when the 35th FS began flying with JDAM. We cover a significantly larger target set than we could eighteen months ago because of the precision capability we’ve added to these airplanes. A year from now when SCU 5 comes out for the Block 30 F-16s, we will be JDAM capable. That will give us a lot more options when weather is a factor as it often is in Korea.”

Perception And Reality

Kunsan has a reputation as a bare base where heat, air conditioning, electricity, and running water are considered luxuries. The base also has a reputation among fighter pilots for some of the best flying in the world. Both notions are close to the mark.

“Newcomers tend to have negative conceptions about Kunsan because it is a remote assignment,” Fyfe says. “The base is significantly better than it was ten years ago when it had some significant infrastructure problems. My mental picture of the country was painted by old Korean War movies. I was pleasantly surprised when I got here in November 2001. The country is very pretty. The people are very friendly. Korean food takes some getting used to, but it’s pretty good. The separation from your family is tough, but not as tough as it used to be. Those stationed here maintain familial contact through emails and international phone calls. We have DSL Internet access here, so some use video cameras to see each other over the Web. The Air Force also grants thirty days of leave, which we usually take in the middle of our tours.

“The time goes by quickly here,” Fyfe continues. “Since we don’t have many distractions around Kunsan, we get real good at our jobs. Young pilots get a lot out of Kunsan as a first assignment. They fly a lot and learn a lot. Many spend their spare time studying the threat. I’ve flown more in the last year than in any other year during my Air Force career.”

“I heard a lot of wild stories about Kunsan before coming over here,” says TSgt. Tom Greenhill, an avionics technician with the 80th. “They said this place was out in the woods with absolutely nothing to do. They said it is a bad place to be. Kunsan is a remote assignment alright, but the isolation draws people together. This tour, like any other tour, is what you make out of it.”

“People tend to forget the hardships of being at Kunsan,” adds Ellis. “They forget about the separation from family and the harsh weather. They remember the good stuff: the excellent flying, the closeness of the squadrons, and the intensity of the mission. They look back on Kunsan as a positive experience. People learn a lot about the airplane, about the job, and about themselves for the twelve months they spend here. When I talk to my wife and children on the phone, I tell them I can’t wait to come home. At the same time, leaving will be tough. I’ve made a lot of close friendships over here. I’ll miss this place.”

Headhunter And Juvat History

Eric Hehs is the editor of Code One.