Volcanic eruption ends, Wisconsin Air Guard training begins

By Senior Airman Ryan Roth

115th Fighter Wing

KEFLAVIK, Iceland – Approximately 100 Airmen from the Madison-based 115th Fighter Wing, Wisconsin Air National Guard, are among 450 NATO military members to take part in Operation Northern Viking 11 through Friday, (June 10), focusing mainly on air-space protection and interoperability between forces.

The biennial exercise is being held at the former Keflavik Naval Air Station, near the coast of southwest Iceland, miles from the snow-covered volcanoes that have erupted into world-wide news the past two years. The volcanic eruption at Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland was officially declared over May 28 according to a situation report from the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the University of Iceland's Department of Earth Sciences.

Northern Viking — an annual United States-led NATO and partner nation interoperability exercise based on a 1951 bilateral treaty between the government of Iceland and the U.S. — validates participant readiness and their ability to respond quickly to conflict or emergency situations.

“This exercise allows a venue for NATO forces to come together, train as we would fight, operate within the European theater and this kind of training provides that continuity from year-to-year to sustain our combat capability,” said Lt. Col. Brian Vaughn, Northern Viking exercise director.

Military members from Denmark, Italy and Norway are training with the United States. The Icelandic Coast Guard is aiding in the exercise as well. Of the nearly 450 participants, roughly 150 are from the U.S. — including active duty Airmen from the European command and the Air Force Reserve. Iceland is the only member of NATO without an active military.

Participants from the U.S. military include the 115th Fighter Wing; the 459th Air Refueling Wing, Joint Air Base Andrews, Md.; the 100th Air Refueling Wing, Royal Air Force, Mildenhall, England; the 1st Combat Communications Squadron and the 603rd Air Operations Center, Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

“This is a great opportunity for Euro Fighters to fly together with F-16s and learn from each other,” said Maj. Eros Zaniboni, a pilot with the 36th Fighter Wing, Gioia Del Colle, Italy.

NV11 is the first time Euro Fighters from Gioia Del Colle have trained with U.S. and Norwegian F-16s. Likewise, 115th FW pilots have never flown against the Italian Euro Fighter 2000 Typhoon aircraft.

Two Norwegian DA-20 electronic warfare aircraft are performing electronic warfare operations with fighter jets, implementing communication and radar jamming during the training exercise. A KC-135 Stratotanker from the 459th Air Refueling Wing, Joint Air Base Andrews, Md., is also gaining joint-force training, having already refueled numerous U.S. and Norwegian F-16s.

“In a real world scenario, it is always going to be a coalition of partners,” said Lt. Col. Ivan Rismo, detachment commander for the Norwegian forces. “The fact that we are able to operate with [our partners] and different fighters will allow us to be interoperable with these other units at any given time.”

The pilots are not the only ones training together in Iceland.

“The controllers that talk to these pilots are shared between the Norwegians, the U.S. and Italy,” Rismo said. “We are very happy to see this exercise come through and it is very interoperable in the way we are doing it.”

The importance of this type of training is still evident today, 60 years after the treaty.

“All the big conflicts we have seen have always consisted in an alliance, whether in NATO or in a coalition,” Rismo said.

To maintain and improve interoperability, NATO members take advantage of the opportunity to train at one location together.

"Being together where we can all talk together in the same room and get a common picture of how we need to operate is paramount," Rismo said.

The 1st Combat Communications Squadron and 603rd Air Operations Center, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, from United States Air Force Europe also contributed to NV11.

Col. Erik Peterson, 115th FW operations group commander and fighter pilot, believes the training received through NV11 can be invaluable toward ensuring NATO partners adapt and plan accordingly to ensure mission success in real world engagements.

“The exercise is a prime example of how partner countries can act collectively to address common, natural challenges,” Peterson said.