JBER Airmen support Red Flag-Alaska international partnership

  • Published
  • By Air Force 1st Lt. Matthew Chism
  • JBER PA
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The multinational exercise, Red Flag-Alaska, kicked off Monday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Along with U.S. Air Force personnel, the event includes units from Thailand, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. The exercise is scheduled to conclude July 22.
Red Flag is a collection of exercises used to practice large force employment, global strike, defensive counter air, close air support, tactical airlift and combat search and rescue operations in an international partnership.

Red Flag will test crews from a number of different aircraft in the exercise; 353d Combat Squadron Detachment 1, located at JBER, staged seven C-130's, three Japanese Self Defense Force airborne 767's (two for refueling and one airborne warning and control system), and a 962nd Airborne Air Control Squadron, E-3 sentry AWACS platform.
Red Flag pushes airmen from all over the world using different systems, speaking different languages and relying on different habits to perform and utilize each others' capabilities.

Eielson Air Force Base is the home station of the 353d CTS, which leads the exercise. Det 1 will play a vital role in the execution of the simulation according to Red Flag-Alaska's website.

In order to effectively simulate the battle field for this exercise, vast land is essential.
Alaska provides with its abundance of nearly 67,000 square miles of training airspace.
Det. 1 provides a number of unique capabilities as well. One of which is the ample space available which allows the planning of larger more complex exercise scenarios.
The need for "efficient interoperability" is what Squadron Leader Maj. Steven Ferguson, of the Royal Australian Air Force's 37 Squadron referred to as one of the external challenges of working in any exercise of this spectrum.

"On this scale, this is the biggest (exercise) that we'll do," Ferguson said. "We exercise in Asia, Australia and some other places, but in terms of the number of aircraft and the number of people involved, it's the biggest."

The Royal Australian Air Force sent 33 air crew members for the exercise and this will be the first time they will test the capabilities of their C-130J model Hercules cargo planes in this kind of environment, Ferguson said.

"(We want to) get our foot into that door working on the radar range in the Red Flag-Alaska environment," Ferguson said.

"What we're doing here this time is the first step in that direction," Ferguson said, as they look to continue to improve the C-130J model along with the skills of their crew.

"We're working out of (JBER) in an airlift package," he said.

By closely working and having open dialogue with the other crews that are participating in the exercise they are rapidly learning the Red Flag format.

"The best thing we'll get from this is experience for our younger folks," Ferguson said.
Experience Ferguson expects they will be able to take back to Australia and disseminate to the rest of the unit.

Though the JBER airfield will see an increase in traffic during Red Flag, Tech. Sgt. Monty Crawford of the 3rd Operations Support Squadron, Airfield Maintenance deputy airfield manager said, other than an increase in flight plans, there will be little effect on the way they do business.

The participants and their airframes have been at JBER since the end of June.
The majority of the background work such as setting up offices, lodging logistics and getting familiar with the area was done in the interim.

The Airmen of Det. 1 who work in the maintenance shop act as liaisons to assist temporary duty units with lodging, shipping and maintenance requests.

The team does what is necessary to help the participants transition to working here on JBER and heading back to their home station go as smoothly as possible, said U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Mike Black, the Exercise Support Officer in Charge for Det. 1.

The largest challenge the shop had with making the recent transition of TDY personnel to the base seamless was with two exercises being back to back.

Black mentioned when Northern Edge ended June 24, they had items still processing to leave JBER as they were beginning to receive items for this installment of Red Flag.

The conclusion of Red Flag Alaska 11-2 does not mark the end of this year's scheduled training. There are two more Red Flag exercises this calendar year, Aug. 11-26 and Oct. 6-21.