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In skies and on the ground in Southern Idaho, military aircraft and personnel trained to fight a near-peer enemy March 25-29, 2024, during exercise Panther Shadow.
The exercise included the Idaho Air National Guard’s 266th Range Squadron, the 388th Fighter Wing and 729th Air Control Squadron, both from Hill Air Force Base.
“During this inspector general led exercise, the F-35s from Hill Air Force Base train to go down range,” said Mr. Kevin D. Coats, an air battle manager with the 266 RANS. “This Agile Combat Employment exercise allows the Airmen to train to employ agile basing and combat.”
The role of the RANS is to provide strategic aircraft control of aircraft training in the military airspace that encompasses Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon.
“We get the aircraft handed off from the civilian air traffic control, and we check them into our airspace,” said Coats. “This includes giving them pertinent traffic, weather and other flight conditions. We also are watching to deconflict the airspace with potential civilian aircraft.”
Controlling 10,000 square miles of airspace is just an everyday task for the RANS Cowboy Control team.
“Cowboy control is part of a military radar unit,” said 1st Lt. Chris Christman, an air weapons officer with the 266 RANS. “We control airspace, and during this exercise, we get to learn from other units on how they work. This allows us to see our jobs from a new perspective.”
This military radar unit is the 266 RANS, an Idaho Air National Guard geographically separated unit, stationed at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
This unit, including Cowboy Control, has a direct impact on combat preparedness.
“The training we do here directly impacts the mission in a real world training environment,” said Christman. “The training aircrew get here could mean the difference between life and death in an actual combat environment.”
Christman and Coats both said that the facilities and range space is one of the big reasons units from all over the world want to train in Idaho. It provides them, to include fifth-generation fighters, access to world-class training and open airspace, allowing them to train for the future fight with a near-peer enemy.
“We are practicing distributed operations,” said Maj. Corrin, a pilot from Hill AFB. “Aircraft are taking off from multiple locations and meeting in the air to fight.”
Corrin went on to say, “This range is important, and the reason we come up here is because of the airspace and facilities. It allows us to train how we would fight.”
| Date Taken: | 03.29.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 05.03.2024 09:53 |
| Story ID: | 470227 |
| Location: | MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, IDAHO, US |
| Web Views: | 145 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Panther Shadow, training for a near-peer fight, by SMSgt Joshua Allmaras, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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