European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 21, 1981, Darmstadt, Hesse                                January 1981 the stars and stripes Poge 9 pillars of nato air surveillance system Nimrod establish versatility by King Cruger staff writer Belgium a year after its natos airborne Early warning Force Nawf is Well on the Way to becoming a but is experiencing Normal growing although its major funding difficulties largely Are a thing of the the expected Day today problems of creating a unique Force air Force Leighton Palm who commands the Force from his Headquarters Here at near says considerable Progress has been a command Pilot with More than flying is a candid Man who views his Job As an Experiment and rightly so since he has been charged with putting together the first International military operational flying fascinating Challenge this has never been done Palmerton said during his first interview with a member of the american Media since he took charge of Nawf a year ago this the Bottom line is that we have an absolutely fascinating Challenge to create that which has never been created we cannot and will not fail if we dont pull this one off the realization of then there wont be More pro Grams like it following its terribly important to nato to make this thing said just what is this Force that Natona tons Are spending Well Over billion to build simply its an International Force of Early warning aircraft the e3a sentry essentially a modified and improved version of the airborne warning and control system Azacs plane and a similar the British built Nimrod that will be maintained and crewed by personnel from 11 different Natona former Raf base its total strength consists of 150 Twenty four of them Are assigned Here with another 126 at Geilen near the dutch Border and the site of a Raf fighter eventually will be the Home of 18 the 11 of will be Home based at Raf wad in addition to those two main operating the Force regularly will deploy to a number of Forward Sites in Italy and the names of these Sites Are still the mobility of the e3a will allow the Force to concen in a particular area to provide full coverage in any High threat although Waddington and several other bases in the United kingdom at this stage Are planned Only for use by the Palmerton Hopes that All Forward operating bases and locations will someday be too efficient fire alarm in Oregon capital a firefighters who rushed to the stale Capitol twice Over a weekend want something done about an Overly sensitive fire both times the alarm was triggered by toasting a department spokesman said that a new alarm was so sensitive that it was set off when someone toasted bread in a first at and then at the next a pipe smoker walking past the same lounge triggered the alarm officials the distributor of the alarm was being called to reduce its officials this would allow Nawf to better utilize the nimrods primary overwater surveillance capabilities and the e3as primary Overland surveillance Geile Kirchens population is expected to grow to 700 personnel by the end of next year and eventually to mushroom to in preparation for its the base is being completely its old runway has been torn up and a new runway is being constructed in its the entire e3a training Center will be at in the the first seven e3a Crews will be trained at tinker the first e3a basically a new Boeing 707 with More powerful engines than the passenger version has already rolled out of the hangar and been flown in the plans Call for it to be flown in March to an Airfield near for the Early warning capability got the go ahead in december of 1976 when the de sense ministers of nato authorized a joint Purchase of 18 contribution the and Germany Are the two big Gest contributors to the with Canada a Distant the Nimrod is the contribution in kind purchased and manned by the and based but made available to the radar in the forces planes can pick up hundreds of targets at the same time whether these targets Are High flying or Low flying tanks or missile Batter ies on the ground or ships in the the targets Are not displayed As raw blips on the planes consoles but As the positions of targets Are displayed along with their Speed and this information is constantly being transmitted to ground the big advantage that the e3as and nimrods radar will give Accord ing to is the ability to watch what they Are doing i the other it will give us increased not just minutes or but perhaps Days if we can see the buildup of forces and if we can see certain activity Over there it is primarily being purchased for the air surveillance role and to permit us to have better intelligence As to what they Are up to Over said he said the sentry with its giant dome gives radar coverage against Low flying aircraft out to around 220 Miles when the e3a is operating from an Altitude of 000 you can pick up any Low flying target up to about that Range the actual advertised ranges for High flying aircraft Are that a fighter sized target can be picked up out to about 275 Miles and a Large like the out to about 325 said extends eyes and ears published reports say the ranges Are even greater than the two Star says the idea of the air plane is that it extends the eyes and ears of nato its a very versatile radar in any 360degree sweep of the radar you can break it up into pie sized he the e3a has a Normal Crew comple ment of but spare Crew can be taken along on very Long missions when Airt air refuelling is the Crew consists of four in the plus two radio opera a computer nine console operators and the radar operator a Galley and bunks Are located the Crews Are multinational and will switch Back and Forth Between delivery of the first air plane to Geilen Kirchen is scheduled for Early february of the Force will go operational there with six air planes sometime in the second Quarter of the Forward air bases and Forward operating locations will be Avail photo by Dave Didio Leighton Palmerton we cannot and will not fail Able at about that with the last e3a to be delivered in the Nimrod program is lagging some what behind the according to Palm and it is not expected to go operational until sometime in there Are a couple of Hundred hours on that air plane birr Rod right it is flying very it does fundamentally the same thing As the its radar has been optimized for use whereas the e3a radar has been optimized for Over the Nimrod has both Forward and Tail radars and it gets its 360degree coverage by the nose radar covering 180 degrees and the rear radar making a is degree both air planes have full communications data link is very important because the concept is that just about everything the air planes will see will be Dow linked into the ground environment a lot of your operational command and control functions will actually be performed on the said our first air plane e3a will have More capability than the air planes Down there at Ramstein today four Azacs presently on deployment to it will have a larger it will have a maritime it will have automatic tracking initiation Cap Abil eventually these things will find their Way into the United states air plane the Palmerton said that because of All the nations involved in the training programs to be established and new facilities to be erected the Force still has All sorts of snakes to contend in answer to a question about whether the Warsaw pact has an equivalent said the Warsaw pact has an airborne Early warning air plane that called the Moss but the radar that on it is really about 1950 it the radar Doest have the it Doest have the the intelligence Community advises us that they see indications of development of a radar perhaps similar to this the e and we would anticipate probably that sometime in the future we would probably see a similar Type of capability on the part of the Warsaw they dont have anything like this