VX-9 ‘Vampires’ test their limits in Alaska

  • Published
  • By Marine Sgt. Zachary Dyer
  • Northern Edge 2009 Joint Information Bureau
ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  Among the 9,000 servicemembers in Alaska for Northern Edge 2009 is a squadron of Sailors, Marines and civilians doing more than just testing themselves against their sister services. 

The "Vampires" of Navy Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 9 are tasked with the duty of evaluating new equipment and tactics for the Navy and Marine Corps. 

For Northern Edge, the Vampires brought six of their F/A-18 Super Hornets to the "Last Frontier" to fly alongside more than 200 aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Army 

"This is probably the most joint exercise I've been in during 25 years of service," said Navy Capt. Dan Doster, the commanding officer of VX-9. "Last night I was working with the ship, I was working F-22s, F-15s and F-18s all in one exercise. Normally you don't see that." 

The main mission of the Vampires is to conduct operational tests for the Navy and Marine Corps' tactical aircraft. 

"We call it Sailor proofing, Marine proofing," explained Doster. "We go ahead and use, as much as possible, fleet maintainers and fleet aviators, who get assigned to the squadron - and we go ahead and use fleet tactics, and that's how we test it. We go ahead and put it in a real-world situation, and say 'Does it work?'." 

The second mission of the Vampires, based out of Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., is to develop new tactics to correspond with the aircraft they evaluate. Before sending platforms like the F/A-18 Super Hornets or the Marine Corps' new AH-1Z Cobras and UH-1Y Hueys to the fleet, the Marines and Sailors of VX-9 develop their own "playbooks" to go with the aircraft, explained Doster. 

According to Doster, that's what drew the Vampires to come to Alaska and participate in the Northern Edge - the opportunity to develop new tactics while working with a wide variety of aircraft. 

"What makes it really good for us is that the morning events have been large force exercises, but in the afternoon events we can break off and take lessons learned from those morning events and go down more to the unit level or work with units that we particularly have an interest in," explained Doster. "And then we can do some of our tactics development objectives and testing. We can try new tactics and bring them back to the large force exercise." 

While the pilots train in the sky, the maintainers and ordnancemen are doing their very own training on the ground to become more proficient at their respective jobs. 

"I'm happy to be a part of a large-scale mission like this," said Petty Officer 2nd Class John Dixon, an aviation ordnanceman with the Vampires. "From what I've been told, this is going to change the way we fight air-to-air combat wars. This is going to change the way we go against our foes. It's a big deal. We're sharpening the edge on the tip of the spear."