NORTHERN EDGE '06 exercise challenges wing, AWACS reservists

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Rich Curry
  • 507th Air Refueling Wing
Tinker AFB, Okla. --  Local reservists participated in a major multi-command exercise this summer as NORTHERN EDGE 06 swung into high gear over the skies of Alaska, cyberspace, and beyond.

Regarding local reserve participation, it was a case of "there" and "virtually there" as members of the wing deployed to Alaska for two weeks with a KC-135 aircraft while members of the 513th Air Control Group's 970th Airborne Air Control Squadron served as exercise control, or the "White Force" while deployed to the Distributed Mission Operations Center (DMOC), part of the 505th Distributed Warfare Group at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico.

Northern Edge is the fourth largest Pacific command live-fly training exercise. The exercise involves Pacific, Alaska, and Air Combat Commands and Pacific Air Forces. Participants also included the Navy, Army and Marine Corp.

In a unique departure from past exercise scenarios, this year's exercise added a virtual twist, using distributed mission operations, or DMO, to simulate a massive air and sea campaign in the Alaskan area of operations. Distributed mission operations involves live training, virtual (people linked via simulators) and constructive (computer simulated) forces interacting in an integrated distributed training environment. Simply put, this training brings more forces and a greater diversity of forces to the exercise at a savings while providing a highly realistic wartime joint forces training experience.

For the 19 maintenance and aircrew deploying for the two week exercise, they joined a Tanker Task Force at Eielson AFB.

"During previous Northern Edge exercises, the tankers would fly missions ranging from two to three hours," said Capt. Jermaine Boyd, 465th Air Refueling Squadron, "During this exercise, our missions ranged from 5 to 5 1/2. It was a very well organized exercise. We received our daily spins on time and everything was well coordinated." The 507th crews did a mid-exercise personnel swap out to permit broader training opportunities for unit members.

This was the largest Tanker Task Force in over ten years at Eielson AFB and the largest in any Northern Edge exercise. More than 17 tankers from 12 total force units across the country refueled more than 100 jets daily. Northern Edge provided the TTF an opportunity to refuel many different types of aircraft from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps demonstrating the military's power projection capability.

One major goal of the exercise was to test and train with the Department of Defense's newest weapons system, the F-22A Raptor. NE 06 is the first exercise opportunity Raptor teams have had to display seamless integration with operators from the Navy, Marine Corps and Army, and to prove how the jet's capabilities will transform the wartime environment.

Meanwhile at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico, Master Sgt. John White, an Evaluator Weapons Director and reservist with the 970th AACS — the Air Force's only reserve AWACS squadron — spent his time simulating bombers, fighters and helicopters flying over the Gulf of Alaska. His fleet of aircraft appears on screens around the Pacific region inside live Air Force jets, Navy ships and at the Air Operations Center at Hickam AFB, Hawaii.

"Live aircraft are also combined with a number of virtual entities to give an AWACS crew located in simulators at the 962nd AACS a realistic air picture," said Sergeant White. "Instead of controlling a few dozen live training missions, they'll be operating in an environment that appears to be a massive air campaign."

Capt. Kim Thompson, an Air Battle Manager with the 970th AACS at Tinker AFB, Okla., has been helping to train Airmen from around the Air Force.

"NORTHERN EDGE 06 is the first time that we've trained in a virtual environment with a number of different commands and warfighting headquarters — Pacific Command, Alaska Command, Air Combat Command, Pacific Air Forces are all participating in this event from locations around the United States," she said.

The line between "real" and "simulated" missions are truly being blurred, said Captain Thompson. The three virtual players are AWACS crews at Elmendorf AFB, JSTARS crews at Robins AFB, Georgia and Navy EP-3 crews working from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington. Data from these platforms and the DMOC is then fed into the AOC at Hickam AFB.

"In a typical scenario, a Navy EP-3 crew in a simulator detected a DMOC computer-generated surface to air missile, then an E-3 crew in a simulator at Elmendorf AFB used the unique AWACS communications links to task a real F-16 flying over the Alaskan ranges to destroy the threat," explained Captain Thompson.

While training inside actual command and control aircraft won't disappear, Sergeant White believes exercises like NORTHERN EDGE 06 will serve to prove the value of combining live, virtual and constructive elements to give crews a wide range of training opportunities.

"When a crew is flying a real mission they have to contend with atmospherics (disturbances with radio communication caused by changes in weather or topography), maintenance issues, long enroute times to the training area, or simply the stress of deconflicting live aircraft," explained Sergeant White. "But DMO still allows us to get very high fidelity training without sending a lot of people TDY or spending a lot of money burning jet fuel."

Indeed, the cost savings to the "heavy" community is substantial. "For a typical exercise deployment we may have to deploy 40 people," said Sergeant White. "But using distributed mission operations, our team can train our entire 14-person mission crew with a much smaller footprint."

"NORTHERN EDGE 06 is the best of both worlds — live training enhanced with virtual aircraft to prepare the warfighter," he concluded.

With more than 5,000 military members participating, information gathered from Northern Edge will extend far beyond the airspace. Training lessons and battlespace knowledge gained here will undoubtedly affect future U.S. military engagements.
During the two-week joint-service exercise, several scenarios have proven that the interoperability and integration between American assets are stronger than ever.

(Captain Nathan D. Broshear, 505th Command and Control Wing, and 1st Lt. Candice Miller, USAF Deputy Director, Eielson Northern Edge Joint Information Bureau contributed to this story.)