ELMENDORF AFB — The skies over Elmendorf are more active these days than usual.

Over the past week, fighter jets, cargo planes and other military aircraft from around the country and Asia conducted war games in the Pacific Alaska Range Complex. The exercises, called Red Flag Alaska, are run four times a year.

Units from Germany, Spain and Singapore have participated. This year’s foreign contingent came from South Korea and Japan.

ANDREW WELLNER/Frontiersman Fire crews at Elmendorf Air Force Base clean the runway Thursday as part of the extensive Red Flag Alaska war games.

The range complex, a huge swath of land in eastern Alaska, is almost the size of Germany and larger than South Korea. Military units divide up into red (“bad”) and blue (“good”) teams and practice identifying and taking out the enemy.

But that’s not all they do. The units also practice in-flight refueling, supply drops, air evacuations and various support functions needed in wartime.

Air Force Lt. Col. Gregory Franklin said that at any one time there could be as many as 100 airplanes in the air. The goal, he said, is to give pilots and crews — especially the least-experienced among them — a realistic wartime simulation.

Red Flag exercises are conducted here and in Nevada, outside of Las Vegas. The Pacific Complex, though, has the advantage of being much larger — two or three times larger — than the range used in Nevada, Franklin said.

“They get to kind of spread their wings a little more,” he said of units working in Alaska. “This exercise is on par with any large force exercise in the world.”

Adam Shockley, who works with a C-130 cargo plane crew, said Alaska is a great place to gain real-world experience. He said he participated in a Red Flag exercise in Nevada and didn’t once have to deal with inclement weather.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful, good luck,” he remembered radar crews telling him.

Alaska, however, is a different story, presenting a new set of challenges.

“How are we going to get from A to B without getting our guys in trouble, flying where they’re not supposed to be?” Shockley said.

Lt. Col. Andy Hird, who flies another Air Force cargo plane, the C-17, said a benefit of the exercise is practicing with other types of aircraft.

“We don’t get the opportunity in the mobility air forces to fight with the combat air forces,” he said.

Capt. Alison Shore, a member of an Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWAC) crew, said most other training missions she runs will include, at most, 10 F-15 fighter jets. The Red Flag exercises, she said, fill her radar screens with planes to track. The sheer number of aircraft flying around the complex provides for great training.     

“It’s very stressful and it’s the only real simulation we have,” Shore said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.