by Senior Airman Katrina Heikkinen
8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
2/5/2015 - DAEGU AIR BASE, Republic of Korea -- Airmen
from the 8th Fighter Wing sharpened combat skills and gained insight
from their Republic of Korea Air Force counterparts during Exercise
Buddy Wing 15-2 at Daegu AB, ROK, Feb. 3 to 6.
During this iteration of Buddy Wing, Wolf Pack Airmen deployed to Daegu
to train alongside Airmen from the 11th Fighter Wing, learning how to
operate as one force with dissimilar fighter aircraft as they integrated
mission planning, briefing, flying and debriefing together.
"As the project officer for ROKAF during this exercise, I've been
working with Captain Duncan [8th FW Buddy Wing project officer and F-16
pilot] intensively for the past two weeks," said ROKAF Capt. Won Ho Lim,
102nd Fighter Squadron F-15K Slam Eagle pilot. "This has been a really
great experience for me. This exercise is not like Max Thunder or RED
FLAG -- it's much smaller, so we've been able to have much more
face-to-face interactions, which has allowed us to focus more on the
relationships between USAF and ROKAF."
Throughout the four-day exercise, pilots exchanged tactics and procedures with their ROKAF counterparts.
"This exercise was unique, because we came to a ROKAF base and operated
at their facilities," said U.S. Air Force Maj. Dean Laansma, 80th
Fighter Squadron assistance director of operations and Buddy Wing
detachment commander. "It was advantageous to see how they ran their
operations as we assimilated ourselves to them and increased our ability
to understand and work with each other."
Buddy Wing exercises ensure that USAF and ROKAF Airmen continuously
enhance combat capabilities, so that if the need arises, they are ready
to fight tonight as a combined force.
Thursday, February 05, 2015
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