Each of these three nations offered 6 F-16AMs, to be operated from Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan, mainly for close air support (CAS) purposes. These CAS missions were flown over Afghanistan, some 1000km south of the new ‘home base’. On the first of October 2002 the EPAF detachment was combat ready and relieved the 12 USMC Hornets and 6 French Air Force Mirage 2000Ds. A total of some 450 EPAF men and women were housed in a four-star camp site. Amazing to see the improvised but high quality facility the US troops built for hosting a total of some 1800 troops!

On a 24/7 basis the F-16s armed with two AIM-120 AMRAAMs, two GBU-12 laser guided bombs and 20mm munitions are patrolling over the beautiful Afghan landscape. Between the snow covered red-brown mountains there are still a lot of people who make the lives of others very difficult. Coalition ground troops in Afghanistan try to maintain peace by keeping the various parties (among them Taliban and Al Qaeda) from each other. On a number of occasions the coalition troops were victim of rebellious violence themselves. In these situations they could call in help from the EPAF presence over the country. Often a low fly-over with afterburner was good enough to prevent the situation from really escalating. But there were also situations that GBU-12 bombs have been dropped on enemy fire. The first time this happened was on 27 Januari 2003 by Norwegian F-16’s. For the Norwegians this was the first bomb drop ‘in anger’ since the end of World War 2.

In addition to the F-16s, the Royal Netherlands Air Force also offered a KDC-10 aircraft in order to refuel the F-16s on their extensive missions. As these missions take up to six or seven hours, the Falcons need to be refueled multiple times.  Furthermore, the KDC-10 kept up a life-line between Manas and the home countries. Once a week the aircraft shuttled from Manas to the Netherlands in order to bring and take post, personnel, food supplies and it ferried F-16s from and to Manas. You can imagine that the Falcons made a lot of flying hours and needed to go back home again for necessary maintenance. The KDC-10 remained in Manas until the end of March 2003, after 78 refueling missions over Afghanistan it was relieved by USAF KC-135Rs. From then the life-line was kept up on a two weeks basis by the KDC-10 operating from its home base Eindhoven.

Manas is often also referred to as Ganci Air Base, named after Peter J Ganci. He was the chief of the New York City Fire Department, who was killed in action on September 11^th. To make Manas Air Base suitable for fighter operations, a new flight line was created with direct tracks to the runway. This line and the tracks are swept clean several times a day to prevent to aircraft from FOD (Foreign Object Damage). On the greater part of the field are constructions in progress. The existing ramps are not big enough to host all of the coalition forces’ aircraft. For instance in the period from January till April the base hosted 10 C-130s (7x USAF, 2x ITAF, 1x SpAF), 4 KC-135Rs (USAF), 1 KDC-10 (RNlAF), 2 Super Puma (SpAr) and of course 18 F-16s. This is apart from all the regular commercial traffic from Manas International Airport. Besides that, Ganci Air Base is also used as logistic main port. Large aircraft such as C-17s and C-5s but also B747s bring in cargo which has to be supplied to the Afghan region with the based C-130s.

Until the 1^st of April 2003 the Norwegians participated in EPAF. Both Dutch and Danish ceased their deployment on 1 October 2003. Together in 12 months of EPAF co-operation the F-16s flew over 2000 missions in some 12000 hours.