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Pope JFEX gives 15th WG Airmen unique training opportunities

  • Published
  • By Capt. David Tomiyama
  • 15th Wing Pubilc Affairs
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR HICKAM, Hawaii --  A 535th Airlift Squadron C-17 flew more than 4,500 miles to participate in a Joint Forcible Entry Exercise at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., from Sept. 13-6. The four-day exercise enabled the Tiger crew to build on their individual war fighting skills in a joint environment.

A JFEX provides the Air Force and the Army an opportunity to train side-by-side in the movement of large-scale cargo and troops. The exercise enhances the cooperation and cohesiveness of the two services as they work together in combat driven scenarios.

"A JFEX is the Army's ability to work with the Air Force and employ the Air Force's assets to basically put mass on drop zones, in this case, an entire brigade (from the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, N.C.), in the shortest amount of time possible," said Capt. Mark Fischer, 535th Airlift Squadron training flight commander.

The 15th Wing along with airlift wings from Alaska, Washington, South Carolina, Texas and Arkansas, provided C-17s and C-130s to fly in formation and drop more than 100,000 pounds of equipment, to include eight 14,000 pound pallets of humvees and other heavy machinery, and more than 1,000 Soldiers each carrying 100 pounds of equipment. Every night over the course of two days, Army airborne Soldiers spent 13 minutes, from the first Soldier jumping, to have the last one land on the drop zone.

"We flew at night with night vision goggles and no lighting over the drop zone," Captain Fischer said. "Fifty-one Soldiers jumped out both doors taking about a minute to get them out, about a second per jumper."

Dropping that many jumpers at JFEX was also a great training experience for loadmasters.

"We get an opportunity to drop a mass amount of people out the back," said Tech Sgt. Isiah Murray, 535th AS loadmaster. "For us its great training because here on the islands, while we do personnel airdrops on a consistent basis, we never get an opportunity to drop from both sides of the aircraft and drop that amount of people at one time."

The Tiger crew deployed close to 102 jumpers, the maximum number a C-17 can carry, at night and in formations with other aircraft, something not common back at the 15th WG.

"JFEX provides huge upgrade training because we don't get to do multi-ship air drop too often, at least more than two aircraft at the same time, and we don't actually drop here (the 15th WG) at night so putting people out the back of an airplane with night vision goggles is not a very common occurrence," Captain Fischer explained.

Besides supporting the airlift mission of the exercise, the Tiger crew expanded on their C-17 training with runs through a surface-to-air missile range and landing on a semi-prepared runway operations or dirt runway, two areas that are not available for crews at the 15th WG.

Launching the aircraft and maintaining them fell upon the crew chiefs who worked 12 hours shifts to ensure the C-17s were able to carry out the JFEX mission. Besides a high operations tempo and working on other wing's C-17s, the 15th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Airmen had unique issues with the North Carolina environment they do not normally find back in Hawaii.

"Bird strikes are not as common at the 15th WG as they are at Pope," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Johnson, 15th AMXS crew chief. "After a sortie, we'd often find bird strikes which meant cleaning up the mess, scraping samples for bird identification and inspecting the area to ensure no damage had occurred."

JFEX exercises are held six times a year at continental U.S. based airlift wings. The 15th WG travels to the mainland to play with the Army, one or two JFEXs each year.

"This capability - using forcible entry skills - to get our Soldiers on the ground quickly and efficiently is a crucial skill to maintain. We never know when we will be called upon to use this capability, but when we are, we will be ready," said Brig. Gen. Michael Garrett, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg chief of staff. "Exercises, like this, which require a great deal of coordination between the services really help to fine-tune what we do so that we can be 100 percent successful. There is no room for error in airborne operations."