‘Cyber plays a role in pretty much
everything we’re doing here,’ said 1st
Lt John Stryker from Air Force Space
Command at Buckley AFB. ‘It’s de nitely
being exercized as a domain for
ensuring our assets on orbit [ t into] our
infrastructure network here in Nellis.
We’re practising how to preserve that
network so we can maintain command
and control, communications, GPS
position, navigation and timing, which
is used heavily by our aircraft.’ Speci c
details of operations were not divulged,
but — as was widely reported in the
media — ight advisories warned that
GPS-equipped aircraft operating in
the western US should be prepared for
possible satellite signal disruptions. It
is fair to assume that training to ght in
a GPS-compromised environment was
one of the goals of this exercise.Foreign ties
Nearly 300 members of the Royal
Australian Air Force (RAAF) travelled
more than 8,000 miles to attend ‘Red Flag
18-1’, bringing multiple aircraft including
four Boeing EA-18G Growlers of No 6
Squadron from RAAF Base Amberley, a
Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne early
warning and control aircraft from No 2
Squadron at RAAFB Williamtown, and a
Lockheed AP-3C Orion surveillance and
reconnaissance platform from No 10
Squadron, RAAFB Edinburgh.
‘This is a signi cant ‘Red Flag’ for
us, obviously, because it’s the rst
time that we have deployed our new
EA-18G Growler to a major international
exercise,’ explained Gp Capt Tim Alsop.
Referring to the accident that befell
EA-18G serial A46-311 on January 27,
he said, ‘Obviously it’s been an eventful
trip for us with the accident we had on
the rst weekend. One of our aircraft
had a malfunction on take-o where
there was a signi cant re that occurred
during the ground roll. The crewdid an amazing job: they conducted
an emergency abort, brought the
aircraft to a safe stop, and carried out
an emergency egress. We then had
a very rapid response from the Nellis
rst responders — they were quite
outstanding. The pilot and the EWO
[electronics warfare o cer] are ne. We
are very con dent after investigation
that we’ve had a particular component
failure.’ Having identi ed the source of
the problem, the remaining Growlers
participated fully in the exercise without
incident.
The UK was represented by Euro ghter
Typhoon FGR4s from the RAF’s No
XI(F) Squadron at RAF Coningsby, No
47 Squadron C-130Js from RAF Brize
Norton and tanker support from No 10
Squadron’s Voyager KC3s, also home-
based at Brize Norton.
The o cer commanding No XI(F)
Squadron, Wg Cdr Paul ‘Pablo’ O’Grady
was quoted as saying, ‘Short of
operations, Exercise ‘Red Flag’ is one ofAbove: The
HARM-shooters
of the 20th
Fighter Wing
are regular
attendees with
their F-16CMs.
Below: The
Oregon Air
National Guard
F-15Cs worked
with 1st FW
F-22s.the most challenging environments to test
the Royal Air Force’s force elements.’
Mid-way through the exercise, ying
operations were paused for a day to give
some respite, in order to spend time
strengthening camaraderie between
participants and foster the development
of the ‘war ghter culture’. So-called ‘Flag
Friday’ was described as ‘a social event
we started for our ‘Red Flag’ participants,
partners and friends,’ according to Maj
Michael Cahill, 414th Combat Training
Squadron director of maintenance. ‘It’s
comprised of guest speakers who talk
about their heritage, leadership style,
lessons learned and unique combat
experiences.’
Final statistics on numbers of sorties
and ordnance dropped were not released,
but it was clear that this was one of the
larger ‘Red Flags’ of recent memory. The
‘Red Force’ was at times augmented by
B-1B Lancers of the 9th Bomb Squadron
from Dyess AFB, indicating that ‘Blue
Force’ assignments were steered towards
dealing with o ensive strike missions
as well as holding the line against
adversary attacks. The large
number of electronic
warfare platforms and
the increased inclusion of
cyber and space asset — including,
presumably, training for the loss of those
assets — points to a shift in the focus of
these exercises and apparent alignment
with the recent National Defense
Strategy, which identi ed near-peer
adversaries as the major challenge facing
the US military.http://www.combataircraft.net // May 2018 67
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