Although working night-shifts can make travelling to cover an exercise like this a little awkward, there were still two days during this Flag that I could make it down to Nellis, which meant flying straight after working a full night.
With the first Flag launches due at 14:00 I booked a 09:20 flight out of Denver, giving me plenty of time to see the action begin; unfortunately though, Mother Nature had other ideas. With up to 20 inches of snow forecast I decided it was probably prudent to change to the first flight of the day and get out of Dodge before getting stuck!
I always fly Southwest Airlines if possible as, with no fees for amending or cancelling your booking, a flexible schedule is no hindrance. As a customer service bonus, with a 'weather watch' in place in Denver, Southwest will offer to change your flight or allow you to go on standby for the same sectors within 14 days at no extra charge!
We departed half an hour late having waited patiently in line for the de-icers (when you have an inch of snow on the wings and fuselage already, you really don’t mind the delay) and, as usual after a night shift, I slept for almost the entire journey.
As if the weather on departure wasn't enough for the pilots to deal with our arrival at Las Vegas can only described as 'sporty', with 45 knot gusts straight across the runway. Safely on the ground, hire car sorted and 30 minutes later I’m eating breakfast with a fellow shooter, waiting for the first action of the day to come around.
The Royal Netherlands Air Force and the Royal Norwegian Air Force were the overseas participants in this Red Flag, both flying the F-16AM Fighting Falcon. The Dutch had a far simpler trip to Nellis with their aircraft coming from Springfield in Ohio where they base a squadron for training purposes. The Norwegians deployed from home however and brought two C-130 Hercules with them.
Joining them from across the pond were F-15E Strike Eagles from RAF Lakenheath which had been at Nellis for a few weeks having already taken part in the preceding Green Flag West exercise. Older F-15C models also participated, these coming from the Oregon ANG in Portland who, luckily for us, sent over their special 'red-tailed' jet.
With no US Navy participation, the Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) role at Red Flag 10-1 was provided by Shaw-based F-16CJs, which probably explains why we ended up having a long stand-off with the Shaw security personal who wanted to inspect, and at one point delete, all our shots of Shaw aircraft. It seemed that they were carrying a new pod that they didn’t want photographed.
A-10s from Moody AFB completed the line-up and, although three B-1Bs were at Neillis, they were doing their own thing and not part of the Flag. However, for the purposes of this feature I couldn't resist including one low light take-off shot!
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