AFRL Participates in Exercise AVENGING EAGLE

  • Published
  • By Dr. Peter Crane
  • Human Effectiveness Directorate
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Air Force Reseach Laboratory members participated in Exercise Avenging Eagle, the first U.S Air Force and British Royal Air Force coalition training exercise to employ distributed simulation systems to connect operational bases. 

Avenging Eagle linked GR4, F2, and Airborne Warning and Control System simulators at the Air Battlespace Training Centre, RAF Waddington, with an A-10 simulator at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany; four F-15 simulators at Langley AFB, Va.; the AWACS training center at Tinker AFB, Okla.; and four F-16 multitask trainers and an A-10 at AFRL's Mesa Research Site, Ariz. 

The success of AFRL's previously conducted Coalition Mission Training Research exercises--which linked U.S. and United Kingdom laboratory systems under an International Cooperative Research and Development Agreement--led to a new, 10-year interoperability agreement between the Air Force and RAF. This newly forged arrangement prompted the conduct of coalition distributed mission operations (DMO) training via US-based Mission Training Centers (MTC).

Though AFRL first began conducting coalition DMO training research exercises in 2001, with the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Exercise Avenging Eagle marks the first event linking the UK's Air Battlespace Training Centre to US-based MTCs via the DMO network.

Avenging Eagle four exercise days focused on scenarios involving coalition, composite-force air operations in an evolving war with integrated air-to-air and air-to-ground operations; an extended vulnerability period, with hand-over of AWACS from US to UK and defensive counter air (DCA) missions from UK to US; concurrent operations with offensive counter air and air interdiction missions in the south, rolling to DCA in both the north and the south; and concurrent, multiple operations including close air support, DCA, downed Airman protection, and Combat Search and Rescue mission coordination. Using secure video teleconferencing, warfighters at all sites planned, briefed, executed, replayed, and debriefed coalition-force missions each day.

Overall, participant feedback noted the outstanding training potential of coalition DMO in providing a range of opportunities to work with composite, coalition forces. Further, Air Combat Command will use the many associated technologies, procedures, and training strategies developed and tested at AFRL to leverage distributed simulation exercises as a complement to live-fly training.