(1st Lt. Jason "Azz" Kiggins is an F-16 pilot assigned to the 35th Fighter Squadron at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea and participated in Red Flag - Alaska 10-01)
My alarm rings at 4 a.m. It’s Friday morning, and I am not on the schedule to fly today, so I’m taking part in the MPC (mission planning cell) for Monday’s flights. I throw on my flight suit and jacket to stay warm since it is only 35 degrees out as I walk to the dining facility. This is unusual for Eielson Air Force Base (in Alaska) in the middle of October, a very mild winter so far. After eating my fill, I make the ten minute walk to the Red Flag Operations building, just past the Thunderdome. The maintainers are already out prepping the jets to fly for the morning flights, and it’s not even 6 a.m.
As I arrive, the place is already buzzing with activity.... The Friday morning mass brief is already underway, and the Mission Commander for Monday’s flight is already pinging. He’s been here since 0400 with Intel, getting the initial look at the ATO (Air Tasking Order) that dropped the night before. His package commanders show up at 5 a.m. to help work out what each of their respective flights will be doing. These flights include Strikers, SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) support, escorts, close air support, tankers, AWACS (airborne warning and control system), Special Operations, airlift, GCI, weather, and Intel. They work diligently to come up with a good initial game plan for Monday morning. I take part in the 6 a.m. meeting, the MPC coordination meeting. For right now, as a new wingman, I am more of a sponge and just learn from what I’m listening to and from what the more experienced Flight Leads and weapons officers are bringing up. I do some of the grunt work and leave the big picture planning to people who have already gone through this before. They are coming up with the coordination cards, deconfliction plans, timing, ordnance, communication cards, tanking plans, re-attack windows, escort plans, fuel plans, ingress and egress plans, etc. And there is so much more going on that I cannot even keep up with. Each package commander leaves this meeting with their idea of what needs to be done on their end and takes it back to their own respective MPCs. I go back with the striker MPC. We have many details to work out concerning our part of the plan to go in and drop our live GBU-12, 500-pound laser guided bombs. We have a suspense time of 1030 to get all of our planning done and transferred into a slide show to present to the mission commander. There are numerous iterations of our plan and the whole plan in general before it is complete and ready for the 1230 final review. Once the mission commander reviews and approves it at that final meeting, nothing changes. Or at least it shouldn’t.
We are released with a good idea of what is going to actually happen on Monday morning. The mission materials have been made and copied, and the plan looks good. Not bad, only a 10-hour day today. Although, you better believe I’d rather be up in the air raging around the mountains and dropping bombs! But since it is Friday, I leave early with plans to hit the gym. The squadron made plans to go eat at the Thai restaurant that is popular among the Red Flag participants. We also have plans on making our way up to Fairbanks to see how Kodiak Jacks and the Red Fox are doing tonight. Not bad for the few bars Fairbanks has to offer. Saturday and Sunday are mainly football and laundry days. Some flights will get together on Sunday afternoon to go over the game plan for Monday as well. I relax for a bit and end up going to sleep around 8 p.m.
Another 4 a.m. alarm on a beautiful Monday morning, it looks like the weather is going to give us a great day to fly. Mass brief begins at 6 a.m., and we do one final look over the coordination and plan, followed by the individual flight briefs. We step to the jets with plenty of time to get across the entire airfield to the Live Ordnance area, way away from everything. Each of us is extra diligent in pre-flighting our aircraft, especially with live bombs on the wings. Start, check in, taxi, takeoff, departure, air-air refueling, holding. All go according to plan. We check in with the Air Boss and let him know we are “as frag’d,” or as planned. As we hold, waiting for our push time, I look around and listen to the radios to find out what’s going on out in front of me. This is my fifth Red Flag sortie, and I can count the total number of flights as a new CMR (combat mission ready) wingman on two hands. I have a good grasp on what is going on and am ready to press in and drop our bombs. The time is now! The F-15 Eagles have paved the way with their air-to-air skills, and the F-16CJs have suppressed the surface-to-air threats. Now it is time for the F-16CGs to drive in low and undetected to bomb the hell out of the (simulated) airfields! We dive to 500 feet AGL and accelerate to 500 KCAS. Our ingress routing takes us up valleys and rivers and along mountains, masking our jets from the surface-to-air radar missile threats. 135 miles later, we arrive at our targets and employ our weapons. Direct hits, of course. We turn around to egress out the same way we came in, low and fast. As we leave, AWACS gives us a “threat to striker” call over the radios. Off the nose for twenty miles. I’ve beat my flight lead to targeting the aggressor on the radar and been given the “hostile” declaration from AWACS, so the only thing left to do is pickle and call “FOX 3.” My first air-to-air kill in Red Flag Alaska 10-01! It no longer matters that I’ve had three deaths in previous sorties (not true, it still matters). We make our way out of the fight airspace and follow the train of aircraft back to Eielson AFB. Our four-ship up initial is pristine. We land and taxi back to the Live Ordnance Area so maintenance can load the jets with more live bombs so the second go flights can achieve their objectives as well.
After getting back in the building, the flights assess their bombs as hits and all valid, and get the shot data for the air-to-air shots. We have a 1330 (1:30 p.m.) mass debrief meeting to go over everything that has happened, and to watch the entire fight on the big screen, bird’s eye view, at ten times the speed. I finally get a speaking part, as I call out my missile shot against the Red Air Aggressor. Valid for a kill; a great feeling. And more importantly, none of my flight was shot at by the Aggressors. Overall, the blue air forces bombed all our targets and achieved the objectives laid forth by the mission commander.
Not every flight goes like this, however. This exercise is used to increase the experience of all those involved. The simulated war we fight increases the chance of success and victory if we should ever go to war against a formidable enemy. The lessons learned here cannot be taught in day-to-day training back at Kunsan, and as a new wingman, these lessons are essential for my career and survival.
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