Steve Anderson led the T-Birds through a demanding schedule of some seventy-two air shows, thrilling millions of viewers. The unit has eight aircraft, eleven officers, and between 130 and 140 enlisted personnel in any given year. An assignment to the Thunderbirds is a high honor, reserved for the best of the best, since this team, more than any other unit, represents the U.S. Air Force to the public.
• 549th Joint Tactics Squadron (JTS)—Known as 'Air Warrior,' the 549th provides simulated close air support and debriefing services to the U.S. Army National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, about one hundred miles to the southwest. They fly the F-16C/D, and can now show visitors the results of their strikes in real time, thanks to a special data link to the NTC 'Star Wars' building (a complex of high-tech three-dimensional real-time displays).
• 66th Air Rescue Squadron (RQS)—This is one of four RQSs that were activated following the poor performance of the U.S. Special Operations Command in the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission during Desert Storm. Combat Search and Rescue gives aircrews confidence that if they are shot down behind enemy lines, well-trained and well-equipped professionals will be on the spot to find them and bring them home. When you read down the list of Medal of Honor recipients, you'll find quite a few CSAR aviators who sacrificed their lives trying to save others. When there are pilots around the bar, CSAR crews never have to buy their own drinks. Composed of 4 HH- 60G Pave Hawk helicopters and a HC-130 Hercules tanker/C31 aircraft, the RQSs provide rapidly deployable CSAR forces, as well as supporting emergency rescue, safety, and security operations at Nellis AFB.
• USAF Combat Rescue School—Designed to provide a graduate-level Combat Search and Rescue training curriculum, the school flies the same HH-60G/HC-130 aircraft as the 66th RQS. In 1994, Lieutenant Colonel Ed LaFountaine commanded the school. The plan is to graduate two classes per year, as well as to provide testing and evaluation services for CSAR squadrons worldwide.
• 820th Red Horse Squadron—This highly prized civil engineering unit can rapidly deploy anywhere in the world. Given a steady supply of water and concrete, the engineers can build a full airbase complex in a matter of days.
• Federal Prison Camp (Area II)—There is a medium security federal prison camp located on the Nellis base complex. One notable recent prisoner was former Undersecretary of the Navy Melvin Paisley, convicted on corruption charges in the late 1980s.
• 554th Range Squadron—Commanded in 1994 by Colonel 'Bud' Bennett, this organization monitors range safety and controls the flight activities for Nellis AFB and the various ranges to the north. In addition, the squadron provides local air traffic control for the FAA, feeding into the LAX control center in Los Angeles.
The twelve-thousand-square-mile/3 1/2-million-acre range complex fans out north of Las Vegas. There is enough range space to put the whole nation of Kuwait inside, with room to spare. Divided into a series of different ranges, or 'areas' as they are called, the whole complex is instrumented with an electronic system known as the Red Flag Measurement and Debrief System (RFMDS). An aircraft flying over the complex can be constantly monitored, providing a continuous record of everything that happens overhead. Each area has a specific function. Some are live-fire gunnery and bombing ranges, while others have arrays of manned radar emitters designed to simulate enemy air defense systems. These include:
• 60-Series Ranges—Test and evaluation, as well as WS training goes on here.
• Ranges 71 and 76—Deep strike-type targets that simulate a strategic weapons factory, SCUD launch sites, and an airfield.
• Range 74—This area simulates a Soviet-style mechanized battalion.
• Range 75—Simulates a follow-on supply convoy, typical of Iraqi columns attacked during Desert Storm.
These ranges are maintained by contractor personnel from Loral and Arcatia Associates, who spend their days servicing the target arrays and keeping the radar emitters working. There is also a Cubic Corp. Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) system, which can record and play back every movement and simulated weapon-firing in air-to-air combat engagements involving many aircraft. This instant-replay capability is heavily used by the Weapon School for after-action debriefings, in which pilots can review every mistake in slow motion from any three-dimensional viewpoint. Also located in the range complex is a legacy of the Cold War: the old nuclear testing range for the Department of Energy (DOE).
No account of Nellis AFB and its ranges would be complete without mention of the three (officially acknowledged) airfields inside the complex. The first of these is Indian Springs Airfield, where the Thunderbirds practice their routines. Indian Springs is also an emergency divert field during exercise and other activities. Farther north is the Tonopah Test Range (TTR) Air Base, which was constructed and used by the 37th TFW when they operated the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter. Following the Gulf War and its public exposure of the 'black jets,' the USAF transferred the 37th's aircraft and personnel to the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. Today, Tonopah is frequently used by reserve and Marine aviation units to simulate operating out of a bare-bones base in the field. The last of the bases that we know about is the mysterious Groom Lake Test Facility, located in the heart of the Nellis AFB/DOE range complex. Based around a large dry lake, Groom Lake is similar in function to the USAF's main test facility at Edwards AFB, but the intense security would make you think the Russians were
But our interest now at Nellis AFB has nothing to do with the black activities at Groom Lake; we've come to observe what goes on in the open light of day. In a word, Flags. The Flag-series exercises simulate real-world combat conditions in a relatively safe and secure environment. The best known of these is Red Flag, which started running in 1975. Conceived by the legendary Colonel 'Moody' Suiter, Red Flag grew out of an alarming statistic of the war in Vietnam. If a pilot survived his first ten combat encounters, his chances of surviving a full combat tour would increase by over 300 %. Such combat encounters help build 'situational awareness,' making an aircrew much more able to survive in the deadly air defense radar and missile thickets that the USAF has to penetrate. So Colonel Suiter got this bright idea: If you could provide those first ten combat missions in a safe stateside training environment, you might lose fewer aircraft and crews when a real war came along. Such training would also allow units to practice the complex art of strike warfare in large formations. Red Flag is designed to give every aircrew in a combat unit those first ten missions up on the Nellis AFB range complex, facing the most talented enemy force they will ever see. Every combat crew is supposed to go through at least one Red Flag during each two-year flying tour, to keep their flying and combat skills honed to a razor's edge. About six Red Flags are run annually, each consisting of a six-week training exercise, divided into three two-week segments.
The core unit is usually a combat wing. Each squadron from the core wing flies fifteen to twenty simulated combat missions during its two week training period. Supporting aircraft detachments (AWACS, tankers, jammers, etc.) make the training even more realistic. For twenty years, Red Flags have helped U.S. and allied combat aviators to prepare for war. The value of this training was proven in 1991, when aviators came back from missions over Iraq declaring, 'It was just like Red Flag, except the Iraqis weren't as good.'
Green Flag is a special exercise that runs each year at Nellis. Green Flag might be called a Red Flag with 'trons and teeth.' Instead of practice bombs, Green Flag uses real bombs. Instead of simulated jamming and electronic countermeasures, Green Flag exposes aircrews to the full spectrum of electronic nastiness that can appear above the modern battlefield. Green Flag's only compromises with realism are that participants don't shoot live ammunition or real missiles at fellow aviators, and no planes are allowed to crash and burn.
Green Flags are very expensive, and difficult to set up. Vast amounts of weapons and decoys are expended during the simulated missions 'up north.' It isn't easy to assemble a force of scarce electronic warfare (EW) aircraft, such as the RC-135 Rivet Joints and the EC-13 °Compass Calls, which are heavily committed to monitoring actual and potential crises around the world. Nevertheless, the USAF runs Green Flag each year to teach combat pilots
