On Friday 20 March, after two weeks of intense flying activity, the Red Flag, the most important aerial exercise organized by the United States in which the Air Force participated together with the forces, ended at the American air base in Nellis, Nevada. German and Spanish airlines.
This exercise was created with the aim of giving those who take part to live a unique training experience in the world, able to contribute in a highly realistic context to improve the readiness and integration between pilots of different assets and belonging to different Countries. The scenario foresees in fact to counter the enemy forces, the so-called aggressors, including the F-16C aircraft of the 57th WG, as well as surface-to-air systems and other support aircraft, integrated with the best assets of the American aviation. It is an exercise context defined not by chance "complex" due to the large number of aircraft taking part and the crisis scenario reproduced. For the Italian Air Force it represented the most important training event of 2020, for the first time ever with three types of aircraft: the F-35 of the 32nd Wing, the Eurofighters of the 4th, 36th and 37th Wing and the CAEW of the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare.
The Italian assets, in the two weeks of exercise, achieved about 200 flight hours in a training environment unique in the world, which allows them to make the most of the potential of the aircraft and weapon systems supplied. The three different aircraft of the Italian Air Force, in addition to achieving important training returns in their typical sector of use, had the opportunity to interact with each other, consolidating joint employment tactics and implementing the interoperability of the aircraft legacy with those of the fifth generation in a perspective of modern conception of air power. The Italian assets operated jointly in the various missions, in particular in the role of control and air escort, implementing the integration of heterogeneous assets of the Air Force in scenarios that cannot be replicated on national territory.
"It was an extraordinary training opportunity for the whole team of professionals who worked on this RED FLAG", underlined Colonel Luca Maineri, head of the Exercise Support Team. "Beyond the very important return in operational terms, these occasions are an extraordinary test bed for all the professional skills that the Air Force is able to express. I would like to emphasize that to allow us to operate here in America at such a distance from home , the Armed Force has once again been able to demonstrate its projection logistics capacity, thanks to which we are able to reach any destination with personnel and vehicles in a very short time and be able to operate and train in every corner of the world exactly as if we were in Italy ".
The Italian F-35s, for the first time present at a Red Flag, carried out all the types of missions foreseen by the scenario of the exercise, with two formations of four aircraft used in both day and night missions. The pilots of the 32nd Wing successfully completed heterogeneous type air operations Escort, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) Air Interdiction e Dynamic Targeting, demonstrating how the aircraft is versatile, mature and endowed with a spectrum of operational capabilities such as to allow the simultaneous and autonomous execution of numerous different missions within the same flight. In particular, the Red Flag has allowed the pilots of this line to further consolidate tactics typical of fifth generation aircraft, operating with the 62nd Fighter Squadron of Luke, in addition to strengthening the role of this aircraft as enablers in complex scenarios. The F-35, in fact, have proven fundamental for the fulfillment of the commander's intent, with a marked ability to stand-off targeting and all-time against dynamic type targets Time Sensitive Target (TST).
The G-550 CAEW represented a real novelty in this context, in which AWACS is usually used, with a range of tasks and capabilities not as wide as those that the 14 ° Stormo platform is able to ensure. The first Red Flag for CAEW crews provided important training returns as it allowed the training necessary to ensure the conduct of missions called battle management and Command and control (BMC2) in an exercise context of type Large Force Employment (LFE), in a high-density and threatened environment said Peer to Peer / Area Access-Denial Area.
The CAEW, thanks to the capabilities of the aircraft, has flown in missions in which it has provided the other assets involved Situational Awareness as Non-Traditional Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (NT-ISR), sharing information with the same capacitive platform (Support to Info-Superiority / Dominance plan). The international exercise context in which the Red Flag was held also made it possible to familiarize with the flight rules typical of American shooting ranges and allowed, during the deployment e re-deployment, to train seafarers on North Atlantic Track (NAT) ocean routes.
- Euro Fighter Fighters took part for the second time in this prestigious exercise by conducting day and night flight operations in increasingly complex scenarios, which allowed to standardize and implement the development of joint tactics with the other air assets present. In particular, the F-2000 line participated in missions in which it jointly carried out both the air defense role and air / ground activity hitting pre-planned targets using laser-guided drop ammunition. This training testified to the high degree of maturity of the machine and the by now consolidated Swing Role capability of the aircraft, pivot of the national air defense but also an aircraft with significant ground attack capabilities as well as important ISR capabilities thanks to the use of the Pod. RecceLite.
