BlogGAR – Paul Dunn – Military Visitors at Alliance Fort Worth Airport

Alliance Airport in the city of Fort Worth is an airfield which often attracts interesting visitors, particularly transient military aircraft. Paul Dunn reports from two recent visits.

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Fort Worth Alliance Airport is located north of the city of Fort Worth. Its FBO is popular with corporate jet operators and flight training organisations, and also with the military. As the airfield is located reasonably close to many of the USAF training bases in the Texas and Oklahoma area, it is a popular lunch stop for training aircraft and crews, so T-38s, T-6s and T-1s are regular visitors, along with US Navy T-45s. There are also numerous Reserve units based in the area, and some of those seem to appear regularly at Alliance. As the airfield has a fairly central location, it is also often used as a fuel stop for aircraft transiting from coast to coast.

I’ve visited Alliance on several occasions over the last few years, and often been lucky enough to catch interesting visitors, including most of the types listed above. Two recent visits brought a nice selection of movements; firstly back in February when I arrived in the morning on a public holiday to find four T-38s and a single F/A-18 on the ramp. The T-38s were from the 469th Flying Training Squadron, part of the 80th Flying Training Wing at Sheppard AFB, TX.

The Hornet was from VMFA-112 ‘Cowboys’, a USMC Reserve unit based at JRB Fort Worth, a short flight away from Alliance Airport. Hornets from this unit appear to be regular visitors to Alliance; the aircraft departed while I was there.

On a visit in March, I arrived just after a gaggle of F-16Cs from the 301st FW, had taxied in and shut down. Another unit based at JRB Fort Worth, the F-16 pilots were taking a break from flying training sorties to stop for lunch at Alliance Airport.

Also present were a pair of F/A-18E Super Hornets from VFA-25 ‘Fist of the Fleet’, normally based at NAS Leemore, CA.

The aircraft were spread around the ramp rather frustratingly, amongst other types such as light aircraft, so it was difficult to get clear shots of them all.

Also present was a T-6 Texan II from the 85th FTS at Laughlin AFB. It appeared to have gone tech, and was being inspected by maintenance personnel at the time of my visit.