Wednesday I drove south on Broadway, as I moved away from downtown Boise and got closer to the airport I looked up and said " What is that?!". All I could see was dark colored aircraft making swift maneuvers in the sky above us. The scary thing was that they were flying low and aggressively. It looked like a scene from the Call of Duty video game. It was definitely a bit alarming until we did some some digging and found out that six AV-8B Harrier aircraft from the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina are here on a training mission and will be in our air space until  April 28.

Apparently the AV-8B's are here to square off against the A-10s from the Idaho Air National Guard’s 190th Fighter Squadron. While this is exciting to watch it's also loud and if you live anywhere near the airport or the flight path chances are you will hear a lot more noise. The training will take place both day and night but you should know that the night flights will be limited to April 19-22. If the noise gets unbearable and you would like to communicate that to the Idaho National Guard you can call 208-422-5252.

In regards to the importance of this exercise Col. Shannon Smith, commander of the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing said in a ktvb interview:

"This is how we operate in the combat environment so it’s imperative our pilots have the opportunity to train with other services, who operate and maintain dissimilar aircraft.”

 

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