HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah -- Airmen from the 388th Fighter Wing participated in an agile combat employment exercise last week, flying and sustaining the F-35A Lightning II from various locations around the mountain west.
The exercise dovetailed with Mountain Home AFB’s RAGING GUNFIGHTER exercise. The ACE concept requires units to maneuver and operate from small, dispersed locations to complicate the enemies targeting and increase survivability.
While the 388th FW has been practicing and honing agile combat employment with the F-35 for years, the evolution of the concept at an enterprise level, revised training requirements, and an influx of newer Airmen, mean the pursuit of improvements will never stop.
“This experience is new to many of our Airmen. We need all of them to be prepared to fight and survive from anywhere, and alongside anyone, when we are called upon,” said Col. Michael Gette, 388th Fighter Wing commander. “Exercises like this give us some valuable field experience and expose our Airmen to more realistic and more complex environments than they see day-to-day.”
During the exercise, Airmen from the 421st Fighter Squadron and Fighter Generation Squadron, alongside the 388th Operations Support Squadron, 388th Logistics Support Squadron, 388th Maintenance Squadron and 388th Munitions Squadron, operated aircraft from Hill Air Force Base’s alert facility; a contingency location across the flightline; Michael Army Air Field at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.
To accomplish this, Airmen from across a variety of specialties were deployed to these locations as part of small Mission Ready Airmen teams. They quickly established the ability to receive, re-arm, refuel and launch aircraft as well as communicate with command elements.
“What we want them to demonstrate is their ability to survive in an unfamiliar environment with some chaotic injects thrown in there, as well as operate functionally as a team and get these jets back in the fight,” said Tech Sgt. John-Barrett Ferreira, a wing inspection team member from the maintenance group observing the group at Dugway. “The have exercise constraints, and they’ve got some real-world constraints, so they need to come together as a team to work through those. All those things help make this a valuable experience.”
This is the second regional agile combat employment exercise the wing has completed this year. The 34th Fighter Squadron and Fighter Generation Squadron completed their own in April’s PANTHER SHADOW.