USAF's 53rd Fighter Squadron re-established

After more than 22 years, since the 53rd FS was decommissioned on 31 March 1999, the squadron has been re-established at Joint Base Andrews (MD). On 10 December 2021, it was activated as an associate unit to the 113th Wing's 121st Fighter Squadron at JBA.

The activation comes as the 53rd FS launches a full partnership with the District of Columbia Air National Guard's 121st FS/113th Wing, as part of the USAF's Total Force Integration initiative, which partners active duty personnel with National Guard units for training and staffing. Recently, the 121st FS was deployed to the Middle East were they flew as part of the 378th Air Expeditionary Wing from Prince Sultan Air Base (Saudi Arabia).

Technically, the 53rd FS falls under the 495th Fighter Group. The 495th FG, headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base (SC), is an active association between active-duty pilots and their guard and reserve counterparts and is the USAF's ongoing initiative to integrate active-duty Airmen, Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) and Air National Guard (ANG) units to streamline training, spending and resource use.

At this moment it is unknown to Scramble if the 53rd FS badge will also be applied on the DC coded F-16C/Ds. Also, it is not known if the 53rd FS, once a flying NATO Tiger Association member, will be a full member again. Currently, 51 former 53rd FS active duty pilots, maintainers, logisticians, and support personnel will work alongside their DC ANG colleagues.

As a side note, some of you maybe remember the 53rd Fighter Squadron. As a US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) based unit it was a welcome guest at many gatherings and airshows. The Bitburg based (later Spangdahlem) F-15s were masters with their low-level break. Three years in a row, during a NATO Tiger Meet (1985 Kleine Brogel, 1986 Cambrai-Epinoy and 1987 Montijo), they performed with their infamous low-level break.

Credit photos: USAF and Ian Powell (Cambrai 1986)