The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) allocated a Hercules transport aircraft and 23 officers and other personnel to a recently completed training exercise in the United States.
Exercise Green Flag was a joint force training event also involving the US Air Force (USAF) and the US Army.
Commander of the detachment, Squadron Leader David Torrington said it had been hosted by the 34th Combat Training Squadron, and involved airlift missions carried out in a dynamic and simulated warlike operation.
Squadron Leader Torrington said the exercise was held from 4 April to 17 April at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas.
He said the exercise improved RAAF’s interoperability with the USAF with Exercise Green Flag focusing on joint force integration which enhanced the RAAF’s ability to safely deliver and supply ground units.
“These kinds of missions require preparation and exposure that’s difficult to find outside of real-world operations,” SQNLDR Torrington said.
He said the exercise was also critical to how the RAAF prepared for future coalition airlift operations, whether they were warlike or humanitarian in nature.
SQNLDR Torrington said that during the exercise, opposing forces sought to take control of drop zones and landing strips required for the RAAF’s C130J Hercules to conduct its missions.
“The scenarios that played out in Exercise Green Flag were similar to real-world operations, including the kinds of payloads we would carry, and the threats we might face,” he said.
“We train for this mission in Australia on a much more limited scale, so we were grateful to come to Little Rock and gain experience that we can reinvest into developing our crews back home to prepare them for deployment into a range of environments around the globe,” SQNLDR Torrington said.
