Red Flag at Eielson AFB, Alaska

This past Friday wrapped up our two weeks of Red Flag Alaska here at Eielson AFB. Each large formation exercise (LFE) consisted of multiple "blue" (friendly) and "red" (hostile) forces, with two each day. A typcial blue force consisted of 16 F-16s (air-to-ground, air-to-air, and SEAD), 12 F-15Cs (air-to-air), 8 A-10s (air-to-ground), 4 KC-135 tankers (air refueling), 2 B-52s (air-to-ground), an AWACS (command and control) and sometimes a C-17 (cargo drop) or helicopter (personnel recovery). The red forces consisted of between 10-14 F-16s, from the 18th Aggressors Squadron. Aggressors are full time Air Force pilots who train solely to provide blue forces in a Red Flag event with professional threat replication...or in other words, simulate aircraft the US could potentially fight against in future wars. The Aggressor aircraft are painted with a cool paint scheme of either black/grey/white or blue/light blue/white.

In a majority of the LFEs I flew in, I lead a 4-ship to the tanker, ingressed to the target area low at 500ft and 500kts through the Alaskan mountains, dropped my bombs and then egressed low as well. There isn't much better in the F-16! In couple of them, we ingressed medium altitude and then picked up an air-to-air role after expending our ordinance on the target. We would rejoin with the tanker north of the Yukon River, get our 4000lbs or so of fuel, proceed to our holding point and then push towards our targets just to the north or Mt. McKinley...about 250 miles. Flying in low to the target area has advantages and disadvantages, but overall it kept us below the air threat (the Aggressors) and make it difficult for the surface-to-air missile (SAM) site radars to track us through the mountainous terrain. The Alaskan flying airspace is some of the best in the world, and the scenery is great as well. I really enjoyed leading some of the new wingmen in their first Red Flag experience...I can still remember mine back in the summer of 2006 as young pilot (click here for that post).

It's been 4 weeks since we flew into Alaska with 1 more to go. This next week we'll continue to make use of the great airspace and bombing ranges before flying back to Korea next Saturday. Lana and I have enjoyed our time here in the far north parts of America, even though we haven't seen as much as we had wanted to. Denali National Park is closed for the winter and Anchorage is an 8 hour drive. But, we can now say we've been here and it will be a good memory for us. Until next time...

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Eielson AFB, Alaska