Active Duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve airmen from across the Air Force came together at Little Rock AFB, Ark., recently for the Green Flag 15-07 large-force air mobility exercise, during which they supported some 3,400 soldiers. Assembled by the 34th Combat Training Squadron, the Green Flag event helped simulate combat scenarios in the opening days of a crisis, such as planning and logistics to setting up a temporary bare base, said Maj. William Miller, chief of tactics with the 403rd Operational Support Squadron at Keesler AFB, Miss. “We also got to exercise our tactics, techniques, and procedures that we wouldn’t use during normal local training.” Airmen from Keesler, Dyess AFB, Texas, JB McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., Little Rock, and the Royal Australian Air Force managed scenarios during the event. The 34th CTS conducts around six to 10 Green Flag events at Little Rock every year to train airmen and crews in advanced combat airlift tactics with joint and allied partners.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…