WATCH: Planes land on M-28 in Alger Co. for National Guard exercise

ALGER COUNTY, Mich. (WLUC) - The Michigan National Guard hosted an agile combat exercise just east of Munising Wednesday.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II was one of the aircraft involved crewed by airmen representing active duty, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units.

“What we’re doing here is trying to do everything we can do to stay one step from our adversaries,” Northern Agility 22-1 Exercise Director Lt. Col. Brian Wyrzykowski said. “If we can generate combat airpower from a public highway, we can do it from almost anywhere.”

The exercise featured several firsts including the first time a US Air Force aircraft had rockets loaded on a public highway. The rockets used in the exercise were inactive.

“If we can operate from a highway, we are very unpredictable and very agile,” Wyrzykowski said. “That’s what we demonstrated here today where you saw the first integrated combat turns for modern combat aircraft on a public highway.”

Planes landed one by one where groups worked hard to refuel them and get each back into the air.

“There are certain types of parameters we’re looking for on a highway and this particular stretch met it,” Wyrzykowski said. “We had heard that M-28 and the Seney highway was one of the longest, flattest straightest in Michigan, so we came up here looking and found this stretch of M-28 in Munising in Alger County.”

The exercise was supposed to happen on Tuesday but was postponed due to poor weather.

“We try to do things according to plan when we can and not everything today went according to plan,” Wyrzykowski said. “Overall, we took a lot of lessons learned that we are going to be able to apply to this and other exercises going forward and agile combat deployment. By all measures, I think today was a total success.”

Wyrzykowski also thanks the people in the U.P. for their cooperation.

Last published: Jun 29, 2022 2:21:41 PM.

For the second year in a row 127th Wing, an A-10 Thunderbolt II / KC-135 Stratotanker unit landed planes on a Michigan highway to demonstrate the United States Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept.

The exercise, Northern Agility 22-1, took place on M-28 east of Munising Wednesday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The National Guard performed a similar training exercise in August 2021 on highway M-32 near Alpena.

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