This wasn’t just to extend the trip for the sake of it. It is part of the RAF’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) thinking.
During the Cold War, the RAF used to operate from unusual locations such as roads and fields in order to make aircraft harder for the enemy to find. Today, Russian aggression in Eastern Europe has reminded it why dispersing aircraft and being more unpredictable is important.
Almost every exercise it now conducts has an element of ACE in it – all of which is designed to give the force greater flexibility on how, when and where it deploys from.
That’s why straight after Red Flag instead of returning to their home base the UK detachment relocated from Nellis to March Air Reserve Base in California, about a 30-minute flight or four-hour drive away.
“You can't expect to operate your high-end aircraft from a home base because they're going to be a target for long-range weapons,” explains Tom Raeburn, a 6 Squadron pilot, who was part of the deployment from RAF Lossiemouth.
“Therefore, we've been exercising consistently over the last couple of years, practising moving our combat air away from the main bases for short periods and dispersing them among numerous airfields.”
The ‘hop’ from Nellis to March represented another iteration of ACE. But it wasn’t just a switch of airfield — the whole exercise took on a different complexion. Red Flag consisted of long planning days followed by short but intense sorties. This was the opposite.
“Rather than just moving to another airfield and flying local tactical training, we turned things on their head,” says Tom. “We were much more limited in terms of the planning equipment. We operated a complex long-distance scenario flying 500 miles out into the Pacific and then had to fight our way back towards the coast. All the US squadrons we were exercising with dispersed as well, so were operating from six different airfields along the west coast. From the command and control to the airspace battle managers, everyone had to coordinate a very complex plan from a distance.
“At March we only had a couple of hours to plan and then we were airborne for several hours. That’s probably more realistic of a high-end war-fighting scenario. You can't expect to get all your senior pilots together in one room to spend a day planning – instead, you have to plan on a much shorter timeline.
“As an exercise the second phase was massive and we were a tiny component. Not only did you have 50-60 aircraft airborne every day and every night, but you also had the US Carrier Strike Group, submarines, and surface ships involved. There was a whole exercise going on around us. As an individual operator on Typhoon, you get less from that, but the whole picture fits together in more of a realistic war-fighting scenario where you don't just pitch up to the airspace for 2 hours, have your fight and then go home.”
With the exercise over the crews and commanders will be considering the lessons learned. Says Tom: “I think the reporting that comes out from this is the first major iteration of it will be interesting. It will inform what we do down the line for our Agile Combat Employment in the UK.”
At BAE Systems our team in the Typhoon Training Facility at RAF Coningsby plays its part in getting the pilots prepared for their exercises, including the ACE elements, thanks to the work they do in the flight simulation.
“In the month before 3(F) Squadron went to Red Flag, we facilitated a lot of training,” explains David Hake, BAE Systems’ Aircrew Simulation Instructor.
“For example, we were able to develop a comms guide and replicate what the Nellis Air Traffic Control would sound like. The simulators have also got a geographical database which meant we were able to put the guys in and out of the base.”
Initially, that work starts with individual pilots but over the weeks the complexity builds and David’s team can link four simulators together to make it a four-ship mission.
“We can’t replicate everything they are going to face but we can give them a good start.”
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