[JYO] Air Defense to Be Tested Tonight

        

From the Washington Post... <A 
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10185-2003Jun3.html";>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10185-2003Jun3.html</A> 
 
----
Many Washington area residents may find their sleep interrupted by the roar 
of Air Force F-16 fighters tonight as the Pentagon conducts a 90-minute air 
patrol exercise to test federal procedures for identifying and confronting 
hostile aircraft, defense officials said yesterday.

In the drill, which will start at 10:30 p.m., two F-16s will intercept two 
Cessna 172 civilian airplanes in a scenario designed to test pilots, 
antiaircraft missile crews and civilian and military commanders.
A spokesman said the jets will take off from Andrews Air Force Base but 
declined to provide further details on the affected airspace. He said that the 
exercise was scheduled for the period when civilian air traffic is lowest and 
that 
flight paths were adjusted to reduce the noise level. 
"We've changed some of the flight profiles to minimize the noise as much as 
possible, but people still will be able to hear some of these things," said 
Major Don Arias, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command 
(NORAD). He added that the F-16s would not use afterburners below a certain 
altitude.
The drill, dubbed Falcon Virgo, is the latest test of a U.S. air defense 
system that was overhauled after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The 
U.S. 
military now maintains irregular air patrols over Washington, New York and 
other cities and deploys Avenger artillery batteries equipped with Stinger 
missiles at various locations, including President Bush's retreat in Crawford, 
Tex.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of NORAD aircraft dedicated to 
patrolling the continental United States has increased from 14 to more than 100 
at 
peak times, and the number of bases involved has grown from seven to 26. 
Military personnel have responded to more than 1,050 in-flight incidents since 
the 
attacks. 
The military also has corrected NORAD's lack of direct radar coverage over 
the mainland United States and improved radio communications with its pilots.
Tonight's drill is not tied to a specific threat, and similar drills held May 
21 and May 29 were unrelated to the elevation of the nation's terrorism 
threat level from yellow to orange between May 20 and May 30, Arias said. He 
declined to specify the troops or units involved in tonight's exercise but said 
it 
will be coordinated with the Federal Aviation Administration, the Secret 
Service and the Army, among other agencies.
The military has run other drills involving cruise missiles, unmanned craft 
and remotely piloted vehicles launched against the continental United States. 
Last year, 1,500 U.S. and Canadian military personnel participated in the mock 
downing of a hijacked civilian jet in the Northwest. That exercise, called 
Amalgam Virgo, had been planned before hijackers flew commercial airliners into 
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The authority to declare a civilian aircraft a hostile target and to shoot it 
down -- which has been delegated in an emergency to NORAD regional commanders 
-- is tested "probably between eight and 15 times a week," Gen. Craig 
McKinley, commander of the Continental United States Region of NORAD, told a 
panel 
investigating the Sept. 11 attacks last month.
In tonight's exercise, Civil Air Patrol pilots will be cast in the role of 
intruders, or "red air" team members. Several civilian and military agencies 
will monitor the exercise, which will be controlled by NORAD.
Also involved will be the government's new national capital region air 
defense coordination center at the FAA building in Herndon, which includes 
military 
personnel, the Transportation Security Administration, the Secret Service and 
other agencies.

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