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Fairchild Airmen participate in Red Flag 16-2

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Taylor Bourgeous
  • 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Airmen from Fairchild participated in a Red Flag 16-2 exercise above the Nevada Test and Training Range from February 29 to March 11.

Red Flag occurs at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. and Eielson AFB, Ala. These areas have vast airspace and allow for more freedom of movement.

During the exercise, the tanker task force training objective is a total force integration effort among Active Duty, Guard and Reserve units with the intention of sharing operations and maintenance functions to conduct air refueling support worldwide.

"The overall role of the KC-135 Stratotanker was to provide aerial support via refueling," said 1st Lt. Justin Medlen, 93rd Air Refueling Squadron pilot. "This was to accomplish a longer duration of flying and realistic training of the full war overseas."

Airmen from Fairchild, Alabama Air National Guard, Ala., McConnell AFB, Kan., and Roland R. Wright ANG Base, Utah worked with joint Italian and Turkish coalition combat air forces during the advanced and realistic two-week exercise.

According to Medlen, Red Flag has two sides; the Blue Force and the Red Force. Blue Force is where most of the fighters do training. The tankers would support the Blue Force with multiple air refueling missions so they could press forward when it was time for either attacking or defending, air and ground assets, he added.

"While the exercise was entirely fighter-centric, the exercise would have been vastly undercut and unrealistic if tankers weren't there," Medlen said.

The Red Force, such as the Aggressors, were stationed at Nellis AFB and were supplemented with a few other fighters. The KC-135 fleet sends a tanker out for the Red Force, to make sure the Aggressors can stay in the air and provide real time enemy threats to the Blue Force during the training. 

"Together we flew over 140 hours, offloaded more than 1 million pounds of fuel and refueled nearly 280 receivers," Medlen said. "We were nearly flawless for getting sorties off the ground with a total of 46 out of the 51 sorties flown."

Without tanker support the mission would have been much shorter, more chaotic and not true to real war, Medlen said. In a real war, air strikes don't happen without tanker support. Therefore, the tanker platform was a crucial and integral piece of the war fighting exercise.

"Red Flag promotes integration and camaraderie between mobility and combat air force assets along with our international partners participating," said Maj. Rob Knapp, Red Flag 16-2 Tanker Task Force detachment commander. "Training in this setting improves joint and coalition warfighting capabilities and is designed to push us beyond our comfort zone. This helps prepare us for current and future contingencies that will require tankers as the backbone for our success."