Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin

–submitted by Rob Stroud; photos by Rob Stroud and Rhonda Adams

On Tuesday, October 31, our Veterans Fellowship met at noon for a tour of the Wisconsin Air National Guard 115^th Fighter Wing.  We were greeted by Lt. Col Ben Gerds, who has been a guard member since finishing high school, more than 30 years ago.  Although he joined the unit as an enlisted airman and worked as a mechanic on the unit’s planes to help pay for his college education, once he finished college, he applied for and was accepted to fighter pilot training and has flown for the 115^th ever since.  He was about as thoughtful, personable, and knowledgeable of a guide as one could be. 

Ben covered the history and the mission of the 115^th Fighter Wing, from its creation to today, with the newest, fifth generation F-35 A fighter jets.  We visited the hanger, where we were able to get close to one these amazing $148 million aircrafts.  At the moment, the 115^th has only six of these aircraft, but they expect to have twenty of them once production catches up with demand.  We learned of the science fiction-like features of the aircraft, with electronic systems that allow the pilot and the plane to carry out a wide range of missions in every possible condition. Unlike the F-16 fighters that these planes replace, the F-35 is extremely stealthy, with fuel, weapons, radar, cameras, and ammunition all being within the hull and with the hull designed so that no radar signal is bounded back from the sending radar.

After viewing the aircraft, we were shown the pilot’s equipment, including an incredible helmet ($500,000 each!) that shows virtually all of the information that the pilot needs displayed on the inside of his visor.  The F-35 has cameras mounted in a number of places on the plane and, with computer technology, the pilot has a seamless camera view of his entire surroundings (including below and behind the plane) that can be displayed on the visor and changed in response to eye movements.  The visor can also display systems information at the touch of a button. 

We observed four pilots (the wing currently has 10 pilots certified on the F-35) being briefed for their afternoon mission and then Ben took us to a spot close to the runway where we watched the four planes take off at 20 second intervals. 

Many thanks to our Fellowship co-chairs, Chris Kolakowski, who gave us a contact person at the Air National Guard and Rhonda Adams, who arranged for this wonderful outing  and thanks, too, to all of the personnel we met at the Air National Guard, who were courteous, professional and friendly. 

If you are curious about how are national defense dollars are being spent, this would be a great place to start.  I am confident that those of us who attended are all in agreement that the visit was even better than we expected, thanks to the men and women of the Wisconsin Air National Guard, 115^th Fighter Wing.