Fighter jets with Northern Lightning exercise drop JDAM munitions for first time at Fort McCoy’s impact area

Photo By Kevin Clark | An Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon flies over Fort McCoy, Wis., on Aug. 13, 2021. The fighter jet was participating in the Northern Lightning 2021 exercise at nearby Volk Field, Wis. F-16s also dropped 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions for the first time at the Fort McCoy impact area during the exercise. Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center hosted approximately 50 aircraft and nearly 1,000 members of the National Guard, Air Force, Army, and Navy as part of the training exercise. Air Force aircraft also regularly fly over Fort McCoy for training operations. (Photo by Kevin Clark, Fort McCoy Multimedia/Visual Information Office)  

FORT MCCOY, WI, UNITED STATES

08.20.2021

Story by Scott Sturkol                                                                                         

Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office           

On Aug. 9, an Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon dropped a 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) in a designated area of Fort McCoy’s impact area on North Post for the first time in post history as part of training in the Northern Lightning 2021 exercise.

“This was the first time we’ve had use of a guided munition like this at Fort McCoy, and it demonstrates the great work that our range planners and range safety experts did to make it possible,” said Training Coordination Chief Larry Sharp with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security (DPTMS). “Our team did a fantastic job coordinating the surface danger zone areas for using the JDAMs. That was not an easy thing to do, but I think it’s a great thing to see it worked out. It adds another dimension of training capability to the installation.”

The Northern Lightning exercise is centered every year at Volk Field, Wis., which is about 30 miles from Fort McCoy. For the 2021 exercise, Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center hosted approximately 50 aircraft and nearly 1,000 members of the National Guard, Air Force, Army, and Navy as part of the exercise, according to an article by Maj. Joe Trovato with Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs.

“Units from California, Idaho, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin will all participate in the exercise Aug. 10-21,” the article states. “Northern Lightning began in the early 2000s before expanding into a large-scale exercise in 2015. It became a biannual exercise in 2018 and 2019 and returned to an annual exercise in 2020. Northern Lightning is a tactical-level joint training exercise replicating today’s air battlespace with current and future weapons platforms.”

The JDAM used primarily during the bombing training at Fort McCoy was the 500-pound BLU-111/MK 82 warhead. According to the Air Force fact sheet about JDAMs, the JDAM is a guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse-weather “smart” munitions.

“With the addition of a new tail section that contains an inertial navigational system and a Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance control unit, the JDAM improves the accuracy of unguided, general-purpose bombs in any weather condition,” the fact sheet states.

JDAM is a joint Air Force and Navy program.

“Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates,” the fact sheet also states. “Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. In its most accurate mode, the JDAM system will provide a weapon circular error probable of 5 meters or less during free flight when GPS data is available. … A JDAM can be launched from very low to very high altitudes in a dive, toss, or loft and in straight and level flight with an on-axis or off-axis delivery. JDAM enables multiple weapons to be directed against single or multiple targets on a single pass.”

The historical training mark of the use of the JDAM at Fort McCoy also occurred in the same week as another historical event when 40th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gen. James McConville visited the installation.

Fort McCoy's motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.”

Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.

The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.

Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.” Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.

• Date Taken: 08.20.2021
• Date Posted: 08.20.2021 17:06
• Story ID: 403657
• Location: FORT MCCOY, WI, US