Miloch
January 7th 20, 04:46 AM
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31743/hill-air-force-base-executes-the-mother-of-all-elephant-walks-with-52-f-35s
The 388th and 419th Fighter Wings that call Hill Air Force Base in Utah home
have just executed a massive readiness drill that included an 'elephant walk' of
a whopping 52 F-35As. The exercise coincides with the wings reaching full
strength following the transition to the F-35A, a process that began years ago.
The elephant walk and the massive number of flights that usually go along with
it are all about sortie generation and displaying a level of readiness that
could be leveraged during a full-blown crisis. Both wings held a similar
exercise in November of 2018 with 35 aircraft, which was highly impressive, but
52 is a whole other story. Just the amount of hardware on the runway in terms of
billions of dollars is staggering.
That same runway in the image is also quite fresh as a major rehabilitation of
it wrapped up this summer. This kept many of Hill's resident aircraft away,
including being sent on combat deployments, as flying needed to continue during
the construction period.
We know that large waves of launches and recoveries are also part of the drill
as the base gave local residents a heads-up in advance of the increased level of
activity in the hours to come.
This elephant walk of 5th generation fighters is also a reminder that Hill AFB
is truly on the leading edge of combat aviation and considering the construction
projects underway at the base alone, it will continue to be for the foreseeable
future.
We will update this post when more images and information becomes available.
*
The 388th and 419th Fighter Wings that call Hill Air Force Base in Utah home
have just executed a massive readiness drill that included an 'elephant walk' of
a whopping 52 F-35As. The exercise coincides with the wings reaching full
strength following the transition to the F-35A, a process that began years ago.
The elephant walk and the massive number of flights that usually go along with
it are all about sortie generation and displaying a level of readiness that
could be leveraged during a full-blown crisis. Both wings held a similar
exercise in November of 2018 with 35 aircraft, which was highly impressive, but
52 is a whole other story. Just the amount of hardware on the runway in terms of
billions of dollars is staggering.
That same runway in the image is also quite fresh as a major rehabilitation of
it wrapped up this summer. This kept many of Hill's resident aircraft away,
including being sent on combat deployments, as flying needed to continue during
the construction period.
We know that large waves of launches and recoveries are also part of the drill
as the base gave local residents a heads-up in advance of the increased level of
activity in the hours to come.
This elephant walk of 5th generation fighters is also a reminder that Hill AFB
is truly on the leading edge of combat aviation and considering the construction
projects underway at the base alone, it will continue to be for the foreseeable
future.
We will update this post when more images and information becomes available.
*