Photo By Tech. Sgt. Michael Smith | U.S. Army paratroopers perform an airborne insertion from a C-130 Hercules during Red...... read more read more
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The last frontier…home to hundreds of mountains that seem to scar the land, glacial rivers that wind through valleys and where millions of visitors travel each year to take in the sights.
However, for members of the 36th Airlift Squadron this place is known as the home of Red Flag- Alaska 16-3; where they will be conducting multi-service, multi-platform coordinated and combat operation exercises.
“Red Flag is the premier exercise of the world where we can simulate to the max extent a real war and how we go about executing it,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Jon Van Pinxteren, 36th AS mission planning cell. “For us, our mission here is to represent the airlift portion.”
According to Van Pinxteren the main part of that is the transportation of troops and equipment into the exercise areas.
“Ideally we are going to achieve air superiority but that’s never going to completely win the war,” said Van Pinxteren. “Fighters can shoot down enemy aircraft all day until the enemy has none left. But, If we need to occupy the country or control an objective, it’s going to be our ground forces doing the work and we bring them to the fight.
“A big part of that for us is trying to keep the plane as stable as possible in the back. These guys are loaded down with hundreds of pounds of equipment, if they fall over on the plane they aren’t standing back up in time to get out of the airplane. At the same time, we have to be ready to react and actively defend the aircraft from threats to prevent the loss of lives.”
To help accomplish this training 80 airborne soldiers from various U.S. Army units piled into two C-130 Hercules from Yokota for personnel drops.
“The opportunity to drop personnel improves our proficiency capabilities,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Frank Laras, 36th Airlift Squadron mission commander. “The exercise itself, being able to integrate with our army brethren to accomplish their objectives and meet our air force training capabilities allows us to increase that interoperability of being able to go out there and execute when it matters most.”
Exercises such as this are one of the many ways C-130 crews get to prepare themselves for real-world contingencies in ways they wouldn’t be able to in Japan.
“It’s great to get to come out here to Alaska where some of the low-level flying restrictions aren’t put into place,” said Laras. “It gives the crews the opportunity to train for how to employ the C-130. The restrictions that we have back home in Japan sometimes gives that false sense of training, because we have to stay so high. So coming out here and being able to participate in these exercises allows us to do what we do best.”
A big part of Red-Flag is bringing units in from around the world to work together and decide on what training they need; bringing new experiences onto the table.
“It’s a great learning environment for our young crew and maintainers to understand the necessity to integrate with forces from everywhere,” said Laras. “On the operations side it’s coming together to make sure that we plan and prepare to the best of our capabilities; integrating our assets. For maintainers it’s understanding the importance of their job knowledge and being able to quick turn aircraft to regenerate missions needed to successfully complete objectives.”
With the exercise still underway members of the 36th AS are expected to take full advantage of the training opportunities the last frontier provides and further demonstrate the importance airlift capabilities.
| Date Taken: | 08.12.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.12.2016 18:26 |
| Story ID: | 206998 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 107 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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