how to operate in a full-scale electronic warfare environment. Green Flag is also an opportunity to test new tactics and equipment in a 'near war' situation.
For 1994, ACC decided to dedicate the third rotation period (known as Green Flag 94-3) to testing the capabilities of the 366th Wing and the composite wing concept. The exercise would include a full overseas-style deployment, complete with the construction of a field-style Air Operations Center in a tent city next to the Red Flag headquarters on the south end of the base. Could a composite wing really function in a bare-bones field deployment? Could other units plug in to the 366th Wing's unique command and control structure? It would be a crucial test for the composite wing concept, and we were invited to observe the results. So in early April 1994, we headed west to join the 366th in their mock war, just outside the gambling capital of the country.
GREEN FLAG 94-3—GUNFIGHTERS SUPREME
When we joined the 366th Wing at Mountain Home AFB, General McCloud was already getting ready to head down to Nellis AFB. With several days to get acquainted with the wing and its people, it was not too tough to sense the collective anxiety over the coming Green Flag test. We spent most of the next several weeks with the wing, and what follows is a 'war diary' of the high points. It was an unprecedented inside look at how a unit like the Gunfighters would go to war.
Saturday, April 9, 1994
We rose to a cold, rainy morning at Mountain Home AFB, and headed over to the 366th mobility office for processing. Instead of flying to Nellis AFB via commercial airliner (the standard procedure to save money as well as wear and tear on Air Force transports), the entire Wing would ride down on the FAST tankers of the 22nd ARS, just as if we were going to war; and we rode with them. The previous day, the first two FAST aircraft flew down to Nellis, taking with them an A package of eight F-15C Eagles, eight F-15E Strike Eagles, 8 F-16C Fighting Falcons, and four KC-135Rs. Since the new 34th BS with their B-1Bs were still getting organized, this trip would be fighters and tankers only. We were going to ride with about sixty members of the Gunfighters aboard FAST-3, the first aircraft to depart on this cold, wet morning.
At the mobility office we stacked our bags in a large, open wooden crate, sat down to have a cup of coffee, and listened to the safety and mobility briefing. In a little while, it came time to board the aircraft and head off. Once we and our gear were loaded, the four CFM-56 engines were started, and we took off. Heading south, we were shown around the aircraft by the crew chief/boomer. We got a look out of the boomer's position at the snow- capped Rocky Mountains, and a chance to 'fly' the boom. Later, we went forward to learn about navigation from the attractive navigator, Captain Christine Brinkman. 'Brink,' as she is called, might look like a high school cheer-leader, but she is one of two experienced female navigators in the 366th Wing. Nobody on our flight crew that day was as old as the airplane, which was manufactured by Boeing in FY-1960!
After learning from Brink how to navigate by 'shooting the sun' through a sextant in the aircraft's ceiling, we sat back and enjoyed the relatively smooth, though noisy, ride of the venerable airplane. To help with the noise, the crew chief handed out little yellow foam earplugs. The cold inside the passenger compartment was another problem. We had been warned about the -135's poor heating system, so each of us wore a leather jacket to ward off the chill. Less than two hours after takeoff, we turned into the Nellis AFB traffic pattern to land. A few minutes later we taxied up to the transit ramp and cranked up the cargo hatch to disembark our gear. We had exchanged the rainy weather of Idaho for an unseasonably warm spring in southern Nevada.
The 366th Wing Air Operations Center (AOC), located adjacent to the Red Flag building at Nellis AFB. During Green Flag 94-3, the wing personnel in this tent city generated the Air Tasking Orders that were used by the Blue Forces.
Flocks of aircraft from units around the country were already arriving, and you could feel the excitement in the air. But the first job was to get the deployment team, ourselves included, bedded down for the duration of Green Flag. Though Nellis is a huge base, like so many others around the USAF, it is desperately short of temporary billeting quarters. Thus, most of the deployed personnel are billeted off base in a variety of hotel rooms and guest quarters in nearby Las Vegas. This housing arrangement is not considered a hardship by the aircrews, who eagerly headed off to collect rental cars from nearby McCarren Airport and claim their rooms. We stayed at a small hotel with the personnel of Lieutenant Colonel Clawson's 391st FS. By sun-down, the Strike Eagle crews had staked out the swimming pool and were discussing the best places to eat and gamble. Since Nellis is only a day's drive from Mountain Home, many of the aircrews' wives and girlfriends had driven down to share two weeks of fun and sun in Las Vegas. This deployment was a real favorite among family members, even though it was going to be a busy two weeks.
Sunday, April 10, 1994
While most of us had a day to relax and rest, the personnel of Lieutenant Colonel 'Tank' Miller's Operational Support Squadron were working hard setting up the wing's AOC in a small tent city in a side yard next to the Red Flag operations building, preparing the first of the Air Tasking Orders (ATOs). Even though the first missions of Green Flag 94-3 were not scheduled for two more days, the writing and cross-checking of ATOs needed to start at least seventy-two hours before they were actually executed. The Ops staff were working hard at their computer terminals to put together a Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List (JIPTL, the master list of bombing targets), as well as the Master Attack Plan for the entire exercise. Another vital document was the Air Coordination Order (ACO), which specified how the airspace around Nellis would be managed, or 'deconflicted,' to minimize the risk of a midair collision or other unpleasant incident. All this planning was supervised by Lieutenant Colonel Rich Tedesco, a combat F-15/WSO with a gift for assembling all the details that go into making an ATO.
An innovation that would be tried for the first time during Green Flag 94-3 was to pull all of the photo- intelligence data for the wing from the new U.S. SPACECOM Space Warfighting Center (SWC) at Falcon AFB, Colorado. The SWC would process photographs taken by surveillance satellites, as well as information from other space-based assets, and immediately feed them to the 366th AOC over a satellite data link located adjacent to the communications tent. The wing would have no manned photo-reconnaissance aircraft for the exercise. Since only a handful of tactical reconnaissance aircraft remain in service, this reliance on satellite imagery for strike planning is quite realistic. The AOC crew would work late into the nights that were ahead, never really getting the rest they needed, but always reacting to the changes that are an inevitable part of the ATO building process.
Monday, April 11, 1994
While the last of the attached air units were arriving, the wing's aircrews were either planning their first strike for the following day or taking guided tour flights over the Nellis ranges for familiarization with the terrain they would be flying over for the next two weeks.
The starting lineup of players for this Green Flag was impressive:
• 2-229th Attack Helicopter Regiment—Twelve AH-64A Apache and six OH-58C Kiowa helicopters from the U.S. Army's 2-229th Attack Helicopter Regiment at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
• 27th FW—Eight F-111F Aardvarks equipped with Pave Tack pods, and four EF-111A Ravens from the 27th FW at Cannon AFB, New Mexico.
