Friday, December 12, 2014

Joint Forcible Entry Exercise 14B

A C-17 Globemaster III takes off from a degraded airfield Dec. 6, 2014, during the U.S. Air Force Weapons School's Joint Forcible Entry Exercise 14B at the Nevada Test and Training Range. JFEX exercises participants' ability to synchronize aircraft movements from geographically separated bases, command large formations of dissimilar aircraft in high-threat airspace, and tactically deliver and recover combat forces via air drops and combat landings on an unimproved landing strip. The C-17 is assigned to March Air Reserve Base, Calif. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joshua Kleinholz/Released)

Well this is a capability you don't see everyday.  If the USAF gets serious about this...and if they can include not only the US Army but also the Marine Corps in this planning/exercise then we'll be well on our way to rebuilding our Rapid Deployment Forces again.

An awesome sidenote is that this takes away a huge selling point for the A400M.  You won't use either airplane on dirt strips very often but its nice to show that for about the same cost as the turbo prop driven airplane you can get the strategic reach and lift of the C-17.