Nellis gears up for Red Flag 15-1

by 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

1/22/2015 - NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- Red Flag 15-1 is scheduled to begin Jan. 26 and will conclude Feb. 13. Base officials want to remind southern Nevada residents that they may notice increased military aircraft activity during this time period.

Aircraft are scheduled to depart Nellis AFB twice a day and participate in the exercise for up to five hours. Flying times are scheduled to accommodate other flying missions at the base and provide Red Flag participants with valuable training in planning and executing a wide-variety of combat missions.

According to the official Red Flag 15-1 press release -- which can be viewed here: http://www.nellis.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123433350 -- this exercise will include aircraft from 21 different U.S. Air Force squadrons; C-130Js, P-3s from the Royal Australian Air Force; and Typhoons, F-15Cs and E-3Ds from the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force.

The 414th Combat Training Squadron assigned to the 57th Wing is responsible for executing Red Flag. The exercise is one out of a series of advanced training programs administered at Nellis AFB and on the Nevada Test and Training Range by organizations assigned to the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center.

Red Flag is a realistic combat training exercise involving the air, space, and cyber forces of the United States and its allies.

The exercise is hosted north of Las Vegas on the NTTR -- the U.S. Air Force's premier military training area with more than 15,000 square miles of airspace and 2.9 million acres of land. With 1,900 possible targets, realistic threat systems and an opposing enemy force that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world,

Nellis AFB and the NTTR are the home of a simulated battlefield, providing combat air forces with the ability to train to fight together in a peacetime environment to survive and win together.

Since 1975, Red Flag has provided training for more than 440,000 military personnel, including more than 145,000 aircrew members flying more than 385,000 sorties and logging more than 660,000 hours of flying time.

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of Red Flag.