Fighter plane flying above mountains

Air to Surface

Information Sheet

ATAC has a diverse history of supporting the air-to-surface mission area. During the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ATAC diverted its pilots, aircraft and resources to help the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy train more JTACs for those intense conflicts. Since that time, ATAC has also supported the U.S. Air Force's training of its JTACs and AFSOC Tactical Air Control Party Specialists (TACPs). ATAC has recently been selected to support AFSOC with its air-to-surface training requirements for the next five years.

ATAC maintains several specialized L-39 Albatros aircraft in support of these missions. Additionally, ATAC can rapidly shift some of its Mirage F1 and Mk-58 Hawker Hunter aircraft to the air-to-surface mission area, as required. Our staff of pilots, a vast majority of them combat veterans, are intimately familiar with the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in this mission area. Many of them were JTACs or FACs or airborne FACs in the Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force.

The list below includes a majority of ATAC's daily air-to-surface taskings, but the list is not all-inclusive:

  • Close Air Support (CAS)
  • Armed Reconnaissance
  • Deep Air Strikes (DAS)
  • JTAC Training (Initial and Sustainment Training)
  • JTAC/FAC "perspective" Training (Aircraft Familiarization Flights)
  • Joint Fires Observers (JFO) Training
  • Subsonic and Supersonic Air-to-Surface Missile Simulations
  • Target Towing
  • Ballistic and Sea-Skimming Missile Profiles
  • Advanced Electronic Attack (EA) Threat Simulations
  • Over-Land Airborne Threat Simulations
  • Large Force and Self-Escort Strikes
  • Large Force Exercise (LFE) Participation