EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFNS) —
The 53rd Wing performed Black Flag 22-1, bringing collectively 4 branches of the U.S. army and the Royal Australian Air Drive in a primary coalition take a look at surroundings to establish enhancements to night-one capabilities, Might 9-13.
As a part of the Air Drive’s take a look at flag enterprise, Black Flag permits the Air Drive to check like we combat, creating power integration methods and discovering capabilities using present and rising materials to ship fight functionality to the warfighter.
As one of many members in Black Flag, the RAAF introduced the E-7A Wedgetail permitting the Air Drive a chance to have a look at the operational integration capabilities the E-7 has to supply. Whereas this is not the primary time the RAAF has built-in the E-7 with the USAF, it’s their first time participating in a take a look at train. The Air Drive’s first E-7 prototype is projected to be delivered to the fleet in FY27.
Following Black Flag, the RAAF’s E-7 flew to Tyndall Air Force Base the place it took half within the 53rd Wing’s Weapons System Analysis Program-East, a premier joint occasion that evaluates a squadron’s potential to conduct air-to-air stay hearth missions.
“This integration is extra than simply take a look at, we’re creating the spine that can drive our ways and communication capabilities in a wartime state of affairs,” stated Maj. Theodore Ellis, Black Flag director. “So, if we get to nighttime one, we don’t have to teach everybody, the information will already be on the market and we are able to deal with the combat.”
A big goal of this Black Flag iteration was addressing automated long-range kill-chains and the way to make sure the applied sciences that assist them are operationally prepared and related.
In January, on the 2021 Weapons and Ways Convention, Maj. Ridge Flick and his workforce offered WATCHBOX and Tactical Radio Software eXtension, or Trax, two highly effective knowledge translation and routing instruments that considerably pace up the information switch from sensor to shooter.
“A single intelligence hit in a database throughout our weapons faculty integration section usually may take 25 to half-hour earlier than it’s handed to a shooter on Hyperlink 16,” stated Flick, Air College Fellow assigned to the USAF Warfare Middle. “Now we’ve shortened the timeline by way of automated means to anyplace from 40 seconds to 4 minutes, and eliminated the errors related to people transposing info from one system to a different.”
Included in Black Flag 22-1, Flick and his workforce examined automated intelligence reporting utilizing Watchbox and routinely disseminated the reporting to 6 separate floor nodes and two Hyperlink-16 networks utilizing TRAX. The testing proved combining machine-to-machine communication and automatic intelligence reporting permits considerably shorter kill-chains.
“The Superior Battle Administration System will resolve some very essential infrastructure issues, however that’s projected for the future, and we’d like one thing that works now,” Flick stated. “Watchbox and different intelligence reporting applications, like SNAPGLASS, paired with TRAX are the interim resolution.”
Constructing off Secretary Kendall’s seven operational imperatives, the 422nd Check and Analysis Squadron Command and Management, or C2, division created and employed a never-before-seen cellular C2 factor throughout Black Flag that aggressively responded to 4 of these imperatives.
Sometimes called “movable not cellular,” tactical C2 capabilities have traditionally been stationary in nature because of the hours it takes to move the getting older cumbersome expertise that has been employed for the previous 20 years, in line with Maj. Paden Allen, 422nd TES C2 division commander.
In an effort to modernize, Allen and his workforce geared up an SUV with industrial and authorities “off-the-shelf” expertise to assemble a tactical C2 factor that was in a position to present command and management features whereas on the transfer. Some examples of their gear embrace a Kymeta antenna, assorted radios, ruggedized computer systems with servers, and Transfer Out/Bounce Off, or MOJO, that supplied extra tactical knowledge hyperlink functionality.
“It is inconspicuous and if we would have liked to desert the automobile in a state of affairs, we may accomplish that in lower than 20 minutes with all our gear,” Allen stated. “By this revolutionary functionality, we proved that we are able to arrange store anyplace with no setup time.”
Allen’s workforce executed two missions which supplied tactical C2 capabilities that demonstrated the versatile and fast mobility choices to and from the Nevada Check and Coaching Vary.
This included driving the SUVs greater than two hours to show command over land in addition to airlift utilizing a U.S. Marine Corps’ KC-130 Hercules to a dry lakebed on the NTTR to copy deployment and extraction from austere environments.
By profitable testing, the workforce found they may scale this resolution to a number of sorts of automobiles, probably enhance the variety of classifications of information they may work between and add extra knowledge hyperlinks by integrating rising expertise. These options would permit extra integration amongst different forces.
“We don’t have time to attend for the latest weapons system, however we are able to develop a brand new tactic tomorrow,” stated Col. Matthew Bradley, 53rd Wing commander. “These built-in ways that come out of Black Flag are how we’ll fight the pacing problem. All of it comes all the way down to who has the tactical benefit.”
The 53rd Wing’s subsequent take a look at flag occasion might be a first-ever maritime Black Flag. The Air Drive will companion with Marine Air Group 11 to deal with long-range takedown of cellular maritime threats. The maritime Black Flag will happen in June 2022.
