Translation : es][rma
My grandfather was a Fighter Pilot.
He flew one of the greatest fighters all time
F4U Corsair
He flew throught the pacific in world War II
He was at Guam, Midway and okinawa
He was awarded all kind of medals
including three distinguished flying crosses ve eleven air medals
when I was a kid, I thought He must have won the war all by himself.
My parents name me John after him and he was my hero.
and when I grew up, I wanted to be a fighter pilot just like my grandpa.
Idle 1, perfectly approved takeoff, the plane , Idle 1, see you a couple weeks
Idle 1, Miami Center, contact Houston center 238.5.
Idle 1, heads a traffic 350, 6 miles and 22.000 feet.
Miami Center, Idle 1, 20 level to 250.
Idle 1, Miami Center, near contact maintain level 250.
As a young guy, at a flight school flying the most powerfull fighter ever built
It's hard not to think yourself is pretty cool and I did.
when my squadron and I went to Nellis for my first Red Flag
I was excited for sure, but I tell you, I was little nervous about what I was getting into it.
Idle 1, is clear demand, runway 21 right
Idle 1, Nellis Tower, coming here down
--- ��?
Here at Nellis Airforce base in Nevada 128 aircraft from six countries
have assembled for the largest air combat exercises in the world
for the next 14 days, these aircraft and their crews'll undertake a simulated air war
for many, It will be the final tune-up before they going to actual combat.
They call it "Red Flag"
Stand up !
Take your seats
Ladies and gentlemen good morning
To american pilots and crews and especially charter allias partners, I'd like to be the first to welcome you to Red Flag
Nations from around the world gather here today
including countries from Germany with their Tornados.
Itay, with F-16
Here I was surrounded by the best fighter pilots in the world.
But I think that all of us, young pilots felt like we had something to prove
We deserved to be there and I wasn't any different.
..in fact, together you currently represent the second largest combat airforce anywhere in the world.
On the first morning at the Red Flag
The Nellis flank line prepares to launch enormous international armada of aircraft all in about twenty minutes
There are 22 F-15 Eagles, representing 4 american squadrons.
They are considered by many to be the greatest fighter aircraft ever built.
The Germans have brought eight of the European Tornados.
The Canadians, the multiroar F/A-18 Hornet arrived from Alberta, Quebec.
The British Royal Navy has flown their famous Harrier Jump jets
represented here, are not just the best pilots in the aircraft,
but the finest ground crews from each country.
for The most personnel,
this would be the first opportunity to compare themselves with other squadrons, both across USA and around the world
It has long been known,
that if the fighter pilot could survived the first 10 combat missions,
the chances of surviving throught the careers improves dramatically.
Red Flag was created to provide those first 10 missions.
and they make it as real as human possible.
what is about to happen is considered by pilots to be more challenging and dangerous than war itself ?
A ghostly B-2 heavy bomber floats towards battlefield.
their job is to destroy the ground base missile launches
before the enemy is even aware of coming the battle
A pair of stealth F-117 follow close behind
B-1 has arrived undisclosed distant location to be provided additional bomber support if necessary
A U-2 begins its long climb to edge of space
sending intelligence to the AWACKS surveillance aircraft
on board the Awack's is air boss major Rob Novotny
He will monitor the airborne about to take place
AWACKS crews use inputs from space systems and radar to understand the battle situation
Each aircraft broadcasts realtime telemetry that appears as 3 dimensionally metry on board the AWACKS.
in this war, most of the aircraft are good guys
known as the Blue Force
The bad guys are the Red Force or the Aggresors
The bad guys fly 12 hime in the vulnerable F-16
They are the finest pilots in USA Airforce
Tractor is the Red Forces mission commander.
For most of the pilots
Red Flag is the first test of air battle in a massive scale
There is no other way to prepare
aircrews for the real thing
in all its precision, implexity and finally chaos
Viper checked in as well, correct ? Yeah
talk me about strategic package will you show him ?
Viper fled at you established in north Eagle flight estaslished in south
Green guys, right there those Canadians ?
Neil, Canadians are orange guys
I thought that British were orange guys. Green guys are Canadians. Can you check ?
Five miles out.
Both sides begin firing heat seeking missilles
Sniper 5, when the check information let's give a warm in candle
Flares are used to distract inbound missiles from enemy aircraft
As planes are hit and declared killed,
they turned white on the AWACS screen
The good guys then must disengage and return to the base
The aggresors get to regenerate and return to the fight.
Once the battle begins, the airboss and his team struggle to keep 128 aircraft,
six countries
smashing into each other
You see here, Viper flies less than 6.000
2 miles in close
using simulated machine guns
a classic dog fight begins
Chuckle 2, your speed 3 miles, positive
Sniper 1, get the mute, get fight
Chuckle 2, what's your situation ?
Negative 5,000
Good try, not get enough.
Sniper 1, It's pretty good, but I'm moving If It is killed.
Sniper 1, target there
I'm moving,
Chuckle 2 is close to closer
I got shots in the air
Sniper 1, guns, guns, guns
showtime, come and kill
Yeah,
Chuckle 21, showtime, you're dead.
Red Flag is not a contest or competition.
There are no winners or losers.
It's about training and saving lives.
I was killed on my firs mission at Red Flag.
I was mad and I had long lonely flight back to base think about it.
The commanders walk a very fine line
in order to save lives in a real combat,
They efforts to take very real risks in training
they are pushing the limits and control the environment
However what I wanna do is not talk about the ingres routes
I wanna talk about instead a near mirror collision that we had
up here in EC west area.
Chuckle 1 Flight, You briefed us earlier today,
that you're gonna maintain your route unless you diverted up to the north
Nobody knows about it because you failed a communicate
your changing flight path
as result of that, 8 people nearly lost their lives today at Red Flag
don't let it happen again.
Range restrictions for today, so remain unchanged EC East West 17....
My fear is screwing up single handedly relargely unfounded.
We all made mistakes.
We knew we had fix them, if we want to get through the next two weeks
in modern warfare, these pilots'll have the most the fear the ground below
surface to air missiles, fire from every concivable platform
have pollutirated by the millions worldwide
Here we have SA-13 missile radar ...as the snapshot radar
They call it "The Thread center"
equipped entirely with enemy weapons
It is based on the same principle used in science museums
If visitors can get their hands on the exhibits
it's more effective learning experience
Pilots call the Pedig Zoo
Some guys got a big kick out of there and go back play around again and again
I hadn't see much value any at least that time
I do not think we appreciated the efforts of the intelligence people as much as we should have.
It's not until much later, when missiles start flying around your ears
And you think: I should have listen a little more when they talked about this stuff.
At five day, end of each day, they search for
Perhaps A single pebble blown over night armed to the runaway by the desert wind
one tiny pebble that otherwise may get sucked into a aircrafts engine
It's quite possible for a crew to lose both their aircraft and their lives before even leading the ground
600 miles and hour under the radar, hugging the rocks
and at the same time, you're trying to update how flight enemy
make mistake down low smacked right into the rocks
It's what Fighter pilot live for.
Radar contact, enemy forces 10 miles south.
Chuckle 1, copy to source out
Here a squadron of F-15 search enemy territory for potential targets
Tractor and his aggresors have an edge of these games
This is their playground.
They have chased visiting pilots through this canyons for years
They make a formidable enemy
The object is to get to enemy front view and at the same time watching the backside.
and then get close as possible before being detected.
The pilot in front has a few options:
He must loose ground quickly and order to get behind the aggresor
and blink of an eye hunter becomes the hunted.
It helped to me a few battles, to built confidence.
what became less about keeping individual scores and more and more about successful overall mission
Shooting down the bad guys is extremely important but is just a small part of great objective
If the bombs don't hit their targets None of us has accomplished our mission
The missions become more and more challenging is Red Flag progressors
Combat periods are extended link intensity
and exhausted pilots are often reqiure tu refuel aircraft
simply to make it back to base
belive it or not sometimes the thoughest part of mission is just getting back
Refueling is one of the most challenging skills to master
It can be a serious situation if you can't take on fuel
in Real combat, if you're run out of gas You have to leave your jet, your risk been captured
There is no margin for air
If a pilot takes too long connecting with the fuel bound He or she may danger the lives of pilot's at the end of line
Chuckle 2, have left engine mulfunction Chuckle 2, Nellis tower,.....
Low level flying is praticularly hard for fighter aircraft.
Engine's sucking dust and even birds
Because squadrons of visiting from around the world
There are rarely spare aircraft in case of mechanical problem
Grand crews are put under intense pressure to keep their aircraft flying
Mechanics are well aware of that small area in the assembly of the engine
could result an fatal explosion either on the test bench or in the air
All right. On, Max.
go ahead, keeping eye on it.
Looks good, check it out.
There was story that my grandfather told me as a kid
began to come back to me when I was a pilot.
Machine gun had jammed.
the gas tank sitting in your lap waiting to blow up
the parachutes they don't always have time to put on
I remember, He said that one more proud the bullets of holes in aircaft
then they awarded with medals
They all wanted to shoot down enemy
But I think my grandfather changed his views of he's got older
He admired the young enemy pilots and their incredible bravery, I remember he spoke of them with respect
After 22 hours of hard work
F-15 engine is ready for the next mission.
"The Red Flag" they seek to exceed the intensity of combat environment.
Not just for the pilots, but for the mechanics and ground crews as well.
but It's difficult enough to turn on a perfect aircraft at the best of times.
to do so in wartime, when brushed, exhausted and under fire, is an art form like no other.
today is the halfway point of Red Flag
However, we all know that planned missions are easy ones
and this mission today, is not planned
From my own personal combat experience and those of us of the Red Flag staff
I can tell you that unplanned missions and most are dangerous ones.
That's why we added this mission to the Red Flag course.
You got have to go further into enemy territory
Because lives are it's take
If all of you are top of the your game
People are gone lose or alive today.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been told we lost a aircraft and
we have a pilot on the ground.
We know his general location hovever he is on the move
Reason he is on the move is right here.
Enemy is doing everything they can do to capture him.
I gave no warning what's so ever of the exercise
You have nothing except what you normally carrying aircraft ejection seat.
water
flares
radio
makeup.
In this exercise, the commander can communicate
via satelite with the downed pilot
But the pilot on the ground must remain silent in order not to give away his position.
Speaking in coded language he warns the pilot
of approaching danger from both ground and air
The first thing is to hope and pray enemy doesn't know about you on the first place.
timing is everything
because when use the radio or flares both sides are coming
The enemy choppers moving to pick up the downed pilot,
The airboss calls in smooth line the A-10 to eliminate helicopters
When they came to pick me up,
I was not completely sure if they were good guys or not.
to the searching rescue team, man of the ground may not be of friendly at all.
he could be wearing a stolen uniform and have a bomb strapped to his body.
he will be threated like the enemy until he proves otherwise.
I realy thought the searching rescue team was going to be silly,
But when I saw the P.J.
is for training they would fully prepare it do it for real
They risk their lives for someone they did not even know
I was truely humble.
Ground Red Flag, I began to appreciate the idea that I was a part of a team,
Everyones role was just as important as mine.
My grandfather didn't talked much about himself
but he did talked about the friends and he made.
ground crews
mechanics, other pilots.
One of his best friends was a Corsair pilot, killed in a training accident.
And I know it bothered for the rest of his life.
Throughout the history of air combat,
crews have successfully brought their battle damaged aircraft home
only to die under a runway a few feet and a few moments for rescue.
Many of us lost friends in accidents.
It is a lot safer than it used to be
but still it is a dangerous bussiness.
Our crews at Red Flag, you want coming after you first stuck in a burning plane.
People not much concern for their own safety.
but to get you out of there, No matter what.
Approching the final missions of Red Flag
dummy weapons are treated for the real thing
In a single overnight shift, hundreds of live bombs are prepared for the next days operation.
Again, there is pressure to perform is would be expected in a combat environment.
They work quickly but with great care.
A slight error at a critical setting control could destroy aircraft and its crew.
There are risks for bomb builders as well.
They work deep in the bottom of the canyon miles from base,
in the event that something does go wrong.
What about show you is the enemies last attempt to fortify their front line forces.
We learned that bringing everything for that they can
Surface is surface rockets
Tanks
and anti aircraft guns.
Everything we have done at this point has been for training.
Today we're gone do it for real
And we're gonna give them everything we got.
in a real war, the vast majority flights undertake not fighters and bombers
but the transport and tanker aircraft.
At Red Flag, a giant C-70 using GPS Navigation
practices precision droping of humanitarian supplies.
With the weapons we have today, hitting anything but to intend to target
is the worst thing a pilot can possible do
Red Flag was my first real experience
to wittnes live worlds
and It was so bringing deep
Sir, target destroy flight was successful.
I consider we got everything we got it all
let's bring them home
Coming here I thought Red Flag was a chance to prove myself
then became all about pulling out of good mission
There was a lot of personal satisfaction in that.
But now, thinking back
What I've learned of Red Flag It's not just about how good I was or wasn't
was to sense becoming part of something more important than myself
becoming part of community of people have so many skills
making personal sacrifices
looking out for each other, getting the job done
I made friends with pilots and crews from all over the states and around the world
Britans, Canadians, Germans ...
It was a wonderful experience and I would remember this as long as I live.
I have been lucky to have many great ..... to watch over me
but there is one who is been with me the longest
and to me, he remains greatest hero of them all.
My grandfather said being a fighter pilot is the best job on earth.
He also said that going to war was worse thing than anything I can possibly imagine.
I would have to say that he was right on both cases