Two weeks later, I am finally home from Las Vegas after attending Red Flag at Nellis AFB, Nevada. I just wanted to share some brief thoughts on how things went.
This was my first time attending a training exercise this large in scale, and my God was it huge. I've never seen so many fighters and other aircraft in one location before. The air was constantly filled with the roar of jet engines; the "sound of freedom" as I like to say.
There were a ton of squadrons there, mostly F-16s and F-15s and a few A-10s, however the F-22s and F-35s that are at Nellis also took to the skies. We had a few AWACS aircraft from Oklahoma, B-52s from Barksdale and Minot, B-1s from Dyess, C-130s from Dobbins, and KC-135s from McConnell, Fairchild, and Utah ANG. In addition, we had our coalition partners from Italy bring their EF-2000s and Mirages and Turkey brought F-16s and two KC-135s of their own. I did see some non-players including an Airbus A-400 from Turkey, 767 refueler from the Royal Air Force, and a C-17 from our Aussie partners. As a bonus, I also witness the Thunderbirds as they practiced.
I flew 6 sorties averaging about 3 hours in length, refueling fighters as they arrived and departed the fighting area. There are two sides to the "battle", red and blue forces. Red are the aggressors and Blue is the main "good" force. I flew 4 or my 6 sorties with Red team (bad guys rule!) refueling those sweet painted F-16s. Desert camo, Woodland and Standard camo, Snow camo, and Blue camo. I have pictures but I need to make sure it's OK to post them first. In true fashion, Red were professiosnal and always stable on the boom. Blue was a bit more difficult, after all, some of those pilots are near brand new and have little experience with refueling. One of my Blue sorties with F-15Es in light to moderate turbulence was by far one of the most difficult sorties I have ever done. 11 contacts on 4 F-15Es will really shake the dust off you and exhaust you all in one 30 minute refueling session. We also gained the opportunity to fly with the Turks. We flew formations with them and we actually had one of their pilots and boom operators fly on our jet. I have nothing bad to say about them, they were true professionals in their work and I enjoyed flying with them. I think we did a great job in establishing and continuing a bond with our coalition partners despite all the BS with the governments and the war overseas.
I came out of Red Flag with a completely different view on the fighter world. They spend endless hours briefing and debriefing sorties, sometimes not leaving the building until 11pm at night after landing at 4pm. I've always know it takes a lot to become a fighter pilot, but seeing first hand just how much they have to know and accomplish during a single 3 hours sortie is ridiculous. In addition, although this isn't a surprise, I saw how little they cared about the Tankers. During our initial briefings (roughly 7 hours) not once did they mention anything about refueling or tankers. Honestly doesn't surprise me since even in the combat world we are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to importance, which is odd considering we are considered HVAA (High value air assets) and the missions would not be as effective without us. All they care about is that we are in our location on time so they can get gas and get back to the real task at hand. I don't blame them at all, and I know that numerous pilots out there are thankful that we do what we do. The fighter pilots have so much on their plate already.
In conclusion, Red Flag was an amazing learning experience. I remember when I was smaller my dad took me to see the Red Flag IMAX movie and I was enamored with the sight of such "coolness". I've wanted to be a pilot ever since I was little, and attending Red Flag only strengthened the drive to finish my degree and commission as an officer to do just that. I've got a bust road ahead, I am starting instructor upgrade training this week so I am going to be balls to the wall until at least end of May.