Hampshire County residents may have noticed some louder passersby overhead in the past year; and, no, it's not the Blue Angels. What you're actually hearing is the 104th Fighter Wing out of Westfield's Barnes Air National Guard Base, now equipped with 18 supersonic F-15 Eagles that have migrated from Cape Cod's Otis Air National Guard Base since that installation was repurposed in 2007 (It is now the home of the 102nd ANG Intelligence Wing). The 104th has been tasked with the mission of implementing the "Air Sovereignty Alert," itself a part of a larger national defense program called "Operation Noble Eagle," in mid-February.
For its part, the 104th at Barnes will take over the duties of first responders to any air threats to the Northeastern U.S., including New York City, which scrambled F-15s can reach in approximately 30 minutes from the base. This is a high-profile job since 9/11 put the Eastern seaboard on elevated alert and slow responses to that day's attacks spotlighted the need for increased vigilance and improved reaction time in Northeastern air defense forces. A more domestic function of ASA is also to track and assist civilian aircraft that become disabled or lost in cloudbanks or other disorienting weather conditions that may occur above open ocean, such those that caused John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Piper Saratoga II HP to crash into the Atlantic off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in 1999. Other missions might involve policing the Canadian border for drug smuggling flights.
The contingent of F-15s has largely overshadowed the more familiar (and quieter) A-10 Thunderbolt II Attack Jets that have trained over and patrolled the region for decades, though the A-10s from Barnes have flown several hundred combat flights in Iraq in active duty campaigns and one of the retired planes now functions as a monument to all those who've served in the 104th over the years at its fixed location near the Barnes' gate.
