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Red Flag: Team Shaw participating in mock battle

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Tony Richardson
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. --  NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- Team Shaw Airmen are participating in one of the largest tactical air training exercises in years as the Air Force conducts Red Flag 11-3, Feb. 21 to March 11.

Red Flag is a combat training exercise involving the air forces of the United States and its allies. It takes place north of Las Vegas on the Nevada Test and Training Range, the U.S. Air Force's premier military training area with more than 12,000 square miles of airspace and 2.9 million acres of land. With 1,900 possible targets, realistic threat systems and an opposing enemy force that Air Force officials say can't be replicated anywhere else in the world, Nellis and the NTTR are the home of a "peacetime battlefield," providing combat air forces with the ability to train to fight together, to survive together and to win together.

The 414th Combat Training Squadron is responsible for executing Red Flag, which is one of a series of advanced training program exercises that organizations assigned to the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center administer at Nellis AFB and on the NTTR.

Red Flag 11-3 marks the official transition to a three-week exercise. It will also undergo several changes to include cyberspace as a new domain in execution of Red Flag.

For the first two weeks of Red Flag 11-3, more than 80 aircraft are scheduled to depart Nellis twice a day, with early launches around 11 a.m. and late launches around 7 p.m. During the third week, early launches change to 2 p.m. and late launches begin around 9:30 p.m. Aircraft may remain in the air for up to four hours. The flying times are scheduled to accommodate the other flying missions at Nellis and to provide Red Flag participants with valuable training in planning and executing a wide-variety of combat missions.

The exercise involves a variety of U.S. forces aircraft, to include F-15s, F-16s, F-22s, E-3s, E-8s, A-10s, B-2s, C-130s and KC-135s, from Nevada, Missouri, Georgia, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina and Washington. In addition to U.S. aircraft, the U.K. Royal Air Force will participate with GR4 Tornados and the Royal Australian Air Force will participate with their C-130s.

For a complete list of participating aircraft for the exercise, visit http://www.nellis.af.mil/redflag-nellis/. For more information about Red Flag, call the Nellis Public Affairs Office at (702) 652-2750.