Air power rules at Utah Test and Training Range

UTAH TEST AND TRAINING RANGE — If there's ever a sound that is like air being torn apart, it's the sound an F-16 makes when it strafes a target.

Flying low on approach, the single-engine fighter plane lets loose its 20 mm multibarrel cannon. As the plane arrives, the sound arrives with it. It's the sound of a zipper, followed by machinery and robotics — all cranked up to an ear-splitting volume.

Some have described it as what a dragon's voice would sound like. But for the 500 people who toured the Utah Test and Training Range on Wednesday, they know that sound as a strafing F-16.

Strafing is the use of a plane's guns at low altitude to shoot targets on the ground. And it happens so fast that the rounds are in the target well before the plane arrives, before you even hear the sound.

"It was a clear demonstration of air power," said Col. Patrick Higby, commander of the 75th Air Base Wing at Hill Air Force Base.

Wednesday was Higby's first visit to the 958,000-acre range since he took over the 75th in April. His wing manages the range's land and its uses, which include bombing and strafing ranges, maintenance of rocket motors and their disposal.

Higby had heard about the UTTR and its importance to the U.S. Air Force and national defense. On Wednesday, he got to see it in action.

"It's definitely a national asset," he said.

The range hosts customers other than the Air Force, says Ron Short, director of Hill's Range Support Division. Basically, any branch of the military with a plane or something to blow up can use the range for those purposes.

Special forces train in a mock terrorist camp nestled next to a mountain that looks like the mountains of Afghanistan. The Army, Navy and Marines have used the range, and so has NASA, which has pilots who need to maintain certifications. The FBI has practiced with explosives, and the German military has flown long-range missions across the Atlantic to Utah.

Some signs are written in Russian to help guide Russian officials who pay surprise visits from time to time to make sure the United States is holding up its end of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — a pact between the two countries to reduce certain types of missiles, warheads and other arms.

The place is always busy, said Col. Jeff Snell, commander of the 388th Range Squadron, which manages the airspace over the range.

Planes make between 14,000 and 16,000 flights a year over the range, Snell said.

But planes Wednesday weren't allowed to fly over the Thermal Treatment Unit, a military name for a detonation site — the only place in the United States where motors more than 10,000 pounds can be detonated.

Hill's Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit detonated a stage 3 motor from a Trident missile, which the Navy launches from submarines.

The flash was quiet, followed by a visible shockwave that expanded more than a mile before it disappeared. After a few more seconds, the concussion hit — a solid, flinch-causing boom followed by the sound of rolling thunder.

"This is just a small piece of the Air Force," Higby said.

This week, the Air Force is showing off more of itself through events in Salt Lake City, Davis County and at Hill Air Force Base's open house and air show on Saturday and Sunday.

"Come out to the open house this weekend and see even more," Higby said.

There will be plenty of noise.

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