Inside the new, longer Red Flag - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Inside the new, longer Red Flag

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — Taxiing toward the Nellis Air Force Base runway on a morning in early March was one of the most impressive gatherings of combat aircraft in the world. In numbers and sophistication, the procession taking off that day was more than a match for the most potent enemy threat.

But the aircraft hurtling down the runway weren’t pointed at Tehran or Pyongyang, and it wasn’t war — they were pointed toward the casinos of the Las Vegas Strip and it was just another day at Red Flag.

Yet, something significant was happening. The nearly 100 aircraft from 21 bases in three nations — 30 more aircraft than last year — were testing the most far-reaching changes in the combat exercise’s more-than-30-year history.

The exercise expanded from two weeks to three weeks for the first time, and instead of a series of primarily air-to-air sorties, planners reshaped Red Flag into a simulated air campaign that more closely mirrors how a real war would unfold. Stealth aircraft were sent in first to defeat the most advanced threats, and then legacy aircraft were dispatched to destroy easier targets and support troops on the ground.

“This exercise was different because ... day one was the most advanced threat,” said Lt. Col. Paul Johnson, Red Flag’s director of operations. “We always advertise that we’re going to crawl, run and then walk. Well, this one we started with running. We tried to make it more realistic in that respect.”

Red Flag officials said the trial that ran Feb. 23 to March 14 was largely successful, but no decisions have been made on whether the new format will become permanent. More time and more aircraft mean more money, and the added costs have to be weighed against the benefits. Air Combat Command will make the final decision, but officials did not say when.

Several pilots who flew in the exercise said the extra week, campaign format and greater number of participants provided better training overall.

Lt. Col. Adrian “Elmo” Spain, an F-22 pilot and commander of the 94th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va., said the new Red Flag offers more opportunities for different airframes to practice together, which is particularly important for a relatively new aircraft such as the Raptor.

“We wanted to integrate more fully with people we would see in those particular missions, [so] we don’t go into war with false expectations from each other,” Spain said.

That’s the kind of training only Red Flag can provide, said Flying Officer Jasper “Reps” McCaldin, an F-111 pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force.

“I’m one of the youngest ... pilots we’ve got here, so for me just integrating into that large-force employment [and] having the threats out there on the range at Red Flag [are] just invaluable,” McCaldin said. “You’ll never get anything like that anywhere else in the world.”

Three-part war

The new Red Flag, as before, is conducted at the 12,000-square-mile Nevada Test and Training Range north of Las Vegas. It is divided into three parts running about a week each.

First is the global strike portion, which had never been done at Red Flag. Global strike is what strategists refer to as “kicking down the door” — knocking out the most dangerous surface-to-air missiles and other defenses with your most survivable, stealthy aircraft.

“You take down the critical parts of that air defense system,” Johnson said. “You take those out with the low-observable assets, and now you’ve created a more permissive environment for the less stealthy aircraft to go in and do their jobs.”

A global strike package ideally involves F-22s and B-2 bombers with support from tankers, Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance birds.

Red Flag planners weren’t able to get a B-2 for the latest exercise; instead, a single F-22 stood in to act as a B-2 and flew a simulated bombing mission. The substitution worked reasonably well, Johnson said, but the global strike scenario was diminished by not having the real-life mission planning the B-2 personnel would have brought.

The second week is similar to a traditional large-force exercise. F-22s were joined by less survivable aircraft such as C- and E-model F-15s, F-16s, Australian F-111s and British F-3 Tornadoes.

The friendly, or blue, force, air-to-air fighters — F-22s, F-15Cs and F-3s — try to shoot down the F-15C and F-16 aggressor aircraft flown by the 64th and 65th Aggressor squadrons at Nellis.

Aggressor pilots study intelligence reports about foreign countries’ air forces and operate their own aircraft, missiles and radars to emulate the most advanced threats fielded by nations such as Russia and China. There are also surface-to-air missile sites on the ground that blue forces must detect and destroy.

“That’s what guys expect when they come out here for Red Flag,” said Capt. Shayne Sullivan, an F-16 aggressor pilot and weapons assistant director of operations with the 64th Aggressor Squadron. “They want to get trained against the most advanced threat.”

After the blue air-to-air fighters have suppressed the aggressor threat, F-15E, F-16 and F-111 strike aircraft penetrate the enemy’s airspace and attack ground targets ranging from vehicle convoys to SAM sites. Then the strike aircraft egress the area under the protection of the remaining air-to-air fighters.

This phase of Red Flag also involves C-130s, which practice dropping cargo and troops behind enemy lines.

The large-force exercise is far more complex, intense and valuable than what aircrews typically get at their home bases, said Capt. Matt “Bam” Mayer, an F-15E weapon systems officer with the 389th Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.

“The air space here is ... bigger, [but] it can get pretty small when you put 100 airplanes in one piece of sky,” Mayer said. “It’s like a big traffic jam out there. ... Staying on top of your game and making sure you don’t hit anybody and they don’t hit you would probably be one of the more challenging things.”

The final week of the retooled Red Flag is dedicated to close-air support — the most common mission flown by fighter and attack pilots in Iraq and Afghanistan — and combat search-and-rescue.

While CAS and CSAR have played a role in Red Flag for years, they have never been the sole focus of a separate segment of the exercise.

In the CAS scenarios, joint terminal attack controllers were dropped into enemy territory to call in airstrikes from A-10s. On the CSAR side, personnel were dropped and then located and rescued by HH-60 helicopters.

After all missions — whether global strike, traditional Red Flag, or CAS and CSAR — aircrews are thoroughly debriefed. They review tapes from their heads-up displays and watch a replay of the mission on the Nellis Air Combat Training System, which shows the location and actions of all aircraft. Pilots receive instruction on what they did right, what they did wrong and how to avoid being killed in the future.

“Those lessons will be learned here and not on the first day of combat,” Johnson said.

More time for Raptors

Spain, the F-22 pilot, has participated in several Red Flags, but this was his first flying the Raptor.

It was the fourth time F-22s have participated in the exercise, but this time they had two full weeks of flying time and could fly both global strike and traditional air-to-air missions. Spain said this experience is critical in helping pilots practice and refine the way they fly the fifth-generation jets.

“We wanted as much as they could give us so we can really validate the [tactics, techniques and procedures] and see where we aren’t as good as we want to be,” he said.

The Raptors’ advanced radars make them extremely proficient at defeating enemy aircraft, and they usually kill F-15Cs and F-16s with ease.

One of the main goals in bringing the F-22s to Red Flag, Spain said, is to practice operating them in conjunction with other aircraft — a necessary strategy in any future war since the Air Force will not have enough F-22s to rely on them alone.

And the Raptor’s much-touted avionics suite gathers a tremendous amount of situational awareness data that pilots must learn to analyze and share with other aircraft.

“We have to manage that data,” Spain said, “and we have to manage it in a way that allows us to get if off our jet and out of our mouths so the rest of the participants can benefit.”

Neither Sullivan nor Johnson — who also flies as an aggressor — would say whether a stealthy F-22 has been killed at Red Flag, but Johnson won’t discount the possibility and wouldn’t mind the chance.

“If you get the F-22 where you can see it visually with your eyeballs, anything can happen,” he said. “As a red air guy who flies with the aggressors, it’s not quite as fun when you can’t see the dude and you’re being called dead.”