{"id":2595,"date":"2015-03-22T00:26:51","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T00:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=2595"},"modified":"2026-04-01T17:14:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:14:32","slug":"the-medias-perspective-of-red-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/the-medias-perspective-of-red-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"The media’s perspective of Red Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Flag is the world’s largest military exercise which occurs\u00a0quite frequently every year. A few years ago, photographers\u00a0were interviewed on their perspective on this military exercise.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/MVrQboP-FoQ<\/p>\n

Day 1 \u00a0\u2013 March 14, 2012<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Red Flag 12-3 started off with the traditional photo shoot between the two active runways. The runway photo shoot is the staple of the Red Flag media day and frankly never gets old. Where else in the world can you stand quite literally\u00a0next to a Strike Eagle taking off in full after burner or see both the latest in aircraft technology \u2013 F-22 Raptor or B-2 Sprit or the oldest \u2013 the KC-135Rs, during flight operations!<\/p>\n

People started to arrived at the runways by noon and a short while later, aircraft started to depart. First the heavies consisting of KC-135Rs, E-3 AWACS, etc. and then the fighters launched. The launch itself is a choreographed event due to mission commanders wanting certain aircraft at specific coordinates at exact times. During a Red Flag launch, eighty plus aircraft are launched in less than an hour or one aircraft every 45 seconds. So it was a race against time for spotters to manage to find time to swap batteries or swap SD cards.<\/p>\n

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During the departure phase, Nellis Public Affairs Specialist Ben Newell asked a photographer\u00a0if he’d wanted to go to the control tower and photograph the remaining portion of the departure. It took the guy about 0.1 seconds to say YES! I thought it would be a great opportunity to cover the remaining part of the departures from this rarely visited vantage point. Fifteen minutes later, the lucky person was up on the tower with two other media members shooting the rest of the departure cycle.<\/p>\n

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From a traditional ground view in between the runways, they\u00a0had only a one-dimensional view of the Red Flag launch. From the control tower, they\u00a0were able to get a \u201cglobal view\u201d of the launch cycle. To get this amount of aircraft prepared for a strike, involving hundreds of aircrews and a greater number of operational, maintenance, logistical, and support personnel is almost beyond imagination.<\/p>\n

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Once the launch sequence had concluded, these lads\u00a0had a little less than two hours before the recovery cycle started. One of the media members that had been with us on the tower, had to return to his station to process his material for an upcoming TV broadcast. This turned out to be another opportunity to view Red Flag, from yet another nontraditional point of view \u2013 The EOR (end of the runway). The EOR or \u201clast chance\u201d is a term referring to a place at the end of a taxiway, before the pilot(s) move onto the runway. It is on the EOR where maintenance personnel conduct final aircraft checks and arm the weapons systems.<\/p>\n

Once the group\u00a0arrived at the northern EOR, they were able to photograph, not only aircraft recovering from the Red Flag exercise, but also other aircraft not directly associated with the Red Flag exercises that were departing for various training flights. These aircraft included F-16s from the 64th<\/sup>\u00a0Aggressor Squadron (64 AGRS) in various camouflage paint schemes.<\/p>\n

After photographing the Red flag fighter\u2019s recovery, 2\u00a0fellow media members returned to the main runways and joined the remaining photographers who were shooting the recoveries. With the tower and EOR opportunities, they all\u00a0had missed the launches of the two B-2 Sprits. However, as luck would have it, they\u00a0returned to the runways just in time to catch the \u201cheavies\u201d (which included the B-2s) recover and taxi back to the ramp. Frankly, the B-2s aren\u2019t the most dynamic aircraft to see take off and\/or land (when compared to an F-15E).<\/p>\n