Approximately 150 Airmen and six F-16s from the 115th Fighter Wing, the Wisconsin Air National Guard unit in Madison, deployed to NAS Key West, Florida, for a joint training exercise with the US Marine Corps from 7-21 January 2012. The Guard pilots went against deployed Marine F/A-18 pilots in simulated air combat during the two week exercise. Missing only a few sorties due to weather, 115th FW pilots logged nearly 120 sorties and more than 175 flying hours. The airspace surrounding Key West is about four times larger, with significantly higher cleared altitudes, than the training airspace in Wisconsin. The Marine adversary pilots were deployed from VMFA-314 at MCAS Miramar, California.
