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Razorback Range: the 50-year-old Fort Chaffee target range now serving allied F-35 pilots

Ark. Breaking News Staff 3 min read

FORT SMITH, Ark.— When Finnish and Polish F-35 pilots take off from Ebbing Air National Guard Base on training missions, many of their targets sit about 25 minutes away on the grounds of Fort Chaffee.

Razorback Range, located on the Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center, is a conventional, scoreable Class A air-to-ground gunnery range sitting inside restricted airspace about 15 nautical miles southeast of Fort Smith Regional Airport. Fort Chaffee provides that restricted airspace to Ebbing so Foreign Military Sales F-35 pilots can make strafing runs on the range, according to the Arkansas National Guard.

Tactical Air Control Party Airmen assigned to the 124th Air Support Operations Squadron, Idaho Air National Guard, conduct close air support operations training late on April 20th, 2026 at Razorback Range, near Fort Smith, Ark. TACPs maintain minimal heat signatures through the use of night vision and infrared equipment to control the skies at all times of day. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech Sergeant Joseph R. Morgan)

The range has been absorbing practice attacks for more than 50 years. It opened in 1974 with a single strafing pit and one bombing circle on 177 acres. By its 40th anniversary it had grown to more than 60 targets and facilities across 1,000 acres, according to the 188th Wing. The targets include two scorable low-angle strafe targets, more than 40 scorable tactical bomb circles, and a tactical urban village built from shipping containers and retired military vehicles. Aircraft train with inert ordnance.

For decades the range’s primary customers were the A-10 Warthogs of the Fort Smith based 188th Wing, nicknamed the Flying Razorbacks. When the 188th converted to remotely piloted aircraft in 2014, the range lost its primary user, and control was slated to transfer to the Arkansas Army National Guard in 2017 while remaining available to Air Force aircraft.

Lt. Col. Brian Burger, an A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot and the 188th Fighter Wing operations group commander, Fort Smith Air National Guard fires off a flare while banking into a high angle firing position during a training exercise on Razorback Range located at Fort Chaffee maneuver training center, June 4, 2012. The 188th, nearing its second deployment to Afghanistan with the A-10, regularly conducts training with Joint Terminal Attack Controllers from different branches of service to sharpen its close air support mission. During this exercise, JTACs from the 75th Ranger Regiment provided forward control.

The foreign pilot training mission at Ebbing has given the range a new generation of customers. Finland’s first F-35 arrived in January, Polish F-35s have been flying routine training missions since March, and Singapore’s aircraft arrive late this year. The Air Force signed a decision in June to grow the fleet at Ebbing to 36 F-35s, with pilots from Germany and Switzerland also expected to train through the program.

Fort Chaffee itself is one of only five National Guard training sites out of more than 150 nationwide to hold a Level 1 rating from the Defense Department. The 66,000 acre installation can lodge more than 5,000 troops at a time and hosts units from around the country for maneuver training, live fire exercises, and urban combat training.

The fort has worn many hats since it opened as Camp Chaffee in 1941. It trained three armored divisions for World War II, held about 3,000 German prisoners of war, gave Elvis Presley his famous Army haircut in 1958, and processed more than 75,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Cuban refugees in the 1970s and 1980s. Now its ranges and airspace are part of the reason allied fighter pilots from five nations are learning the F-35 in Arkansas.