17 January 2024

71st Fighter Squadron Training at the Savannah Air Dominance Center

When I returned home from my Space Coast Road Trip, I discovered that some visitors had arrived at the Savannah Air Dominance Center at the Savannah-Hilton Head IAP. It turned out that they were 71st Fighter Squadron (FS) F-22As. They didn't fly over the weekend or on the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, but they did start flying on Tuesday. More visitors arrived during the holiday on Monday: 7th Fighter Training Squadron (FTS) T-38As. On Tuesday, the 71st FS F-22As flew during the afternoon and evening, joined by 7th FTS T-38As during the afternoon. During the evening flights, the F-22s were joined by a 434th ARW KC-135R for aerial refueling operations. Afterwards, the KC-135 landed at Hunter AAF, where it may remain for more aerial refueling with the F-22s throughout the rest of the week. 

Tuesday was the only opportunity I'll have to listen to them until next Tuesday, so I'm posting what I heard in hopes that it helps anyone else interested in listening. My Airspy R2 software defined radio (SDR) was a tremendous help in searching for the air-to-air frequencies. It searches the large chunk of spectrum between 225.000 and 399.975 MHz used by military aviation far quicker than any scanner can. If you've never used one, you may want to look into one, they're incredible monitoring tools. 

257.800 - Savannah-HHI IAP Tower
124.975 - Hunter AAF Tower
126.200/285.425 - Hunter AAF Base Ops
353.775/371.875 - Savannah TRACON
124.675/282.200 - Jax Center Jekyll Low

120.950/284.500 - SEALORD North Primary
267.500 - SEALORD South Primary
376.900 - W-137 Discrete
293.600 - NORAD Discrete
274.400 - Aerial Refueling

237.000 - CRTC/ADC Ops, 71st FS "IRON Ops"
173.5875 ($608) - CRTC/ADC; 71st FS MOC
173.4875 ($402) - CRTC/ADC Ops?
173.5875 ($606) - CRTC/ADC; 7th FTS MOC
234.200 - 71st FS Air-to-Air
234.800 - 71st FS Air-to-Air
257.075 - 71st FS Air-to-Air
277.700 - 71st FS Air-to-Air
247.000 - 71st FTS Air-to-Air

BOOZER 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
DONKEY 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
FIST 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
FLASH 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
IRON 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
STEEL 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
STONE 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
TRITON 0# (F-22A, 71st FS)
WOMBAT 0# (T-38A, 71st FTS)
MASH 73 (KC-135R, 61-0272, 434th ARW)

I'm not sure how many F-22s are here (there are at least ten of them), but it sounds like there are 5 T-38s, arriving as a flight of 3 and a flight of 2 on Monday. I haven't been able to go out to the airport and see any of the aircraft close enough to see tail numbers, but I was able to get these via radio traffic and Mode-S/ADS-B. Perhaps spotters will be able to get some better information.

F-22A, 00-4012, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 00-4015, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 00-4016, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4029, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4030, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4031, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4034, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4035, 71st FS?, former 43rd FS aircraft
F-22A, 02-4036, 1st FW
F-22A, 03-4042, 71st FS

T-38A, 62-3715, 7th FTS
T-38A, 62-3722, 7th FTS
T-38A, 68-8139?, 7th FTS?, former 2nd FTS aircraft?)
T-38A, 63-8218, 7th FTS
T-38A, 67-14923, 7th FTS

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