Several months of hard work go into making RF-Alaska a success

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Christopher Gross
  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICAHRDSON, Alaska --  Alaska's premier quarterly exercise, Red Flag-Alaska, results from several long months of hard work put in by hundreds of individuals.

Red Flag-Alaska, hosted at JBER and Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, four times a year, is a Pacific Air Forces-directed field training exercise for the U.S. and coalition forces flown under simulated air combat conditions. Crews have the largest air-ground training complex in America to sharpen their war-fighting skills because the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex is more than 67,000 square miles.

Preparation for this RF-Alaska, which runs from Aug. 15 through 26, began back in March of this year, which is when the initial planning conference was held, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Kevin Dolata, the 353rd Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 1 director of operations.

Dolata said there's a lot of time and effort that goes into hosting all the different units that take part in RF-Alaska, especially international partners.

"Every time units arrive, we have to activate computer accounts for them and set up networks with Eielson to execute mission planning," he said. "It is very difficult due to communication restrictions to actually execute every flag no matter where units are from. However, when foreign units are here, this increases dramatically because they are not allowed access to the NIPR and SIPR at all."

Dolata said it can become a huge logistical nightmare when it comes time to move files, brief and mission planning materials.

However, the team of 21 full-time personnel from the detachment, manage and execute the mission. Their hard work has allowed 166 aircraft to partake in the first two of four RF-Alaska training sessions this year, flying 2,154 sorties for a total of 4,580 hours.

Part of this includes Airmen from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

There are a lot of moving pieces to ensure everyone gets here on time and they're prepared for when the exercise kicks off, said Air Force Capt. Alex Goldfein, a pilot with the 67th Fighter Squadron and his unit's deployment manager for RF-Alaska.

With almost 150 Airmen from Kadena's 18th Operations Group and 18th Maintenance Group, Goldfein said there's a lot of paperwork involved and lots of back and forth with subbing in Airmen for one another. That's probably the most difficult part of prepping for RF-Alaska is "the movement of the people, plans change pretty rapidly, so we always have to adjust," Goldfein said.

One of the most important things for Kadena Airmen was to ensure everything's in line and ready to go, he said, things such as life-support gear, and parts and pieces maintainers will need to work on the jets. Once all that was compiled, it was loaded up onto a C-17 Globemaster III and sent here to JBER.

He said the easiest part of the ordeal was getting the jets here to JBER. Kadena brought 10 F-15 Eagles and an Airborne Warning and Control System.

Airmen arrived here, about a week before the exercise kicked off. They attended required briefings and by Aug. 15, it was all about keeping up with the high-operation tempo for everyone involved, Goldfein said.

Once the exercise kicks off and things get underway, Goldfein said all the hard work that his crew and himself put in is worth it, because this is truly a great training experience.

"The biggest thing that I've seen from these exercises that we can't get at home is just the pure integration of all the aircraft. We don't have the opportunity to fly with these aircraft all that commonly," he said.

He said you can practice and simulate the scenarios they fly all day, but to be out there with everybody and going through those scenarios at full speed really pays off. It allows them to overcome any challenges or kinks they may have and move forward feeling more confident.

Goldfein said he really enjoys working with all the other units from around the globe, and he also admires being able to see all the different capabilities from the high volume of aircraft that participate in RF-Alaska.

He said he's very impressed with the high-ops temp the maintainers have to keep up with. Kadena typically flies most of their jets here twice a day. Back at home station it's a much smaller percentage of jets that go twice a day, "there's a lot of pressure on them to get the jets prepped and ready to go," he said, but they get the job done.

Air Force Capt. Brett Vanderpas couldn't agree more with Goldfein about what a great training opportunity this is for everyone involved.

"I've been flying Eagles for two years now (and) this is my third Red Flag. It's a great training opportunity. This one in particular seems really good. Training with our guard brethren and total force integration as well as getting to train with the aggressors up north is a good training platform for us," said the Boston, Mass. native.