US forces go to “war” with the Thai and Singaporean Air Forces in an ever more important large-force exercise.

L-r: An F-15C from the Florida Air National Guard, an F-15SG from Singapore’s , and a JAS-39 Gripen fly in formation. Photo courtesy of the Singapore Ministry of Defense Cope Tiger By Marc V. Schanz, Senior Editor

USAF airmen walk to their C-130 on a misty morning during Staff photo by Marc V. Schanz Cope Tiger 2012.

32 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2012 AIR FORCE Magazine Magazine FORCE AIR K but aside from a , few memorials of and northeast static miles 160 some Plateau Korat the of edge the on Base Force Air Thai Royal Korat over looms airfield. the from Vietnam North against sorties F-4 and F-105 of thousands launched 1975, to 1966 from Korat at stationed , . The 388th Tactical Fighter the during base air nearby the at served The Vietnam War-era control tower still men and civilians who air Force Air US of name to the familiar thousands a sima—is Ratcha Nakhon as Thais most to known orat, / June 2012 June / air combat mission. combat air air-to- simulated a after RTAFB, Korat Thailand, at Singapore from airmen with talks (r) pilot USAF A — - - tactics, weapons delivery, coordination coordination delivery, weapons tactics, The assembled airmen practiced air-to-air jets used for and command airborne control. business militarized to transports and , fighters, from ranging by the Thais—drew a diverse air armada hosted and Forces Air Pacific including exercise. air multinational large-force were here for Cope Tiger 2012, the annual The fightersand the airmen behind them fighters. older of squadrons and F-15Cs the field,alongside veteranUS Air Force Singapore of F-15SGs—lined Force Air Force JAS-39Air Republic and Gripens new —including Royalbrand- March, In dramatically. changed Thai displays of retired aircraft, the scene has During its two weeks, the exercise— the weeks, two its During

USAF photo by Capt. David Herndon the exercise. the of tempo the adjusting and monitoring mission a entailed Croft, job Korat whose at commander Dixon Maj. said USAF often,” very engagements] force way. anyother offered Tiger experiences Cope American airmen can’t gain But Flag. Red as in participated during their careers, such have exercises airmen large-force US of Thai Force Base. Air Royal Thani Udon from jets—worked attack A-10 as well as C-130s, and 17s C- as such transports Korat—although exercise. the for Thailand to traveled personnel military US 400 than More systems, communications. simple and warning early airborne with Large and Foreign with these allies. allies. these with chances are good the US will be fighting the call comes to fightin Southeast Asia, If clear: was point the maintainers, and environment. coalition a in debrief and recover, execute, plan, must they where venue multilateral a in like at any exercise,other but they do so just marks” their “hitting are pilots US to air, it’s a range of dissimilar missions.” air doing just you’re not and with, work to have you barriers language are there on; going what’s of third a “Here, only we’re noted. Croft [Singaporeans],” Cope first washis this Tiger. participants, the of one with familiarity Republic of Singapore Air Force—and the his runs Commando Sling aerial exercise with Singapore—which the in Flight Training Combat 497th the of mander the notional enemy. notional the status of the campaign against “Redland,” Thitong, provided the day’s flierswith the Thai intelligence officer,Flight Lt. Suwit complicated. Korat by and Plateau, Week get 2 things the of threats ranges military the across up pop ground and aerial of array An daily. changing scenarios with exercise, alone.” it at can’t go we conflict, a is there “If added, Croft important.” so are they why and work operations multilateral how is this “But one of four mission commanders at Korat. lenging; it’s a process,” said Maj. Jeff Yost, “Most “Most crews ... don’t get to do [large- number any resembled activity The from operated fighters the of Most Croft’s “day job” as detachment com “Planning every day out here is chal is here out day every “Planning fliers to down commanders the From the and us just is Sling “Commando At the morning brief on March 19, a 19, March on brief morning the At Cope Tiger is a fast-paced and evolving 33 - - active electronically scanned array ra- dars, top-shelf integrated avionics, GE F110 engines, and several other advanced sensors and upgrades. It was the first time

Photos by Ow EngTiong the F-15SGs exercised with US forces. The final day of Cope Tiger featured a massive multinational personnel drop, as USAF C-17s and C-130s ferried more than 240 Royal Thai Air Force, , and US airmen to a drop zone at Above: A Republic of Singapore Air Force F-5S. Right: A G550 airborne early warning aircraft, also belonging to Singapore, at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base. “Redland information warfare is be- coming effective, and nonaligned coun- tries are wavering in support,” he said, adding that the fictional enemy had deployed the bulk of its integrated air defenses and was now on a full war foot- ing. According to the scenario, an F-16 gested these continuing developments Lop Buri, Thailand, where they carried had been shot down the previous day, indicate how operations in this corner of out both static line and high-altitude, some damage was done to the enemy’s Asia are growing in importance. low-opening jumps. It was the largest surface-to-air missile sites, and Redland The Florida Air National Guard’s 125th such jump in exercise history, and the had now reportedly undertaken a rescue Fighter Wing deployed 12 F-15Cs on a first to have both Thai Army and Air operation for a downed pilot, using special world-girdling journey, and all arrived in Force personnel in large numbers in the operations forces. good condition, ready to fight. It was the same operation. “Redland will use all resources to first large employment of an ANG unit On the morning of the jump, TSgt. prevent the use of [their] airspace,” the during the exercise’s 18-year history, said Steven Raethel, a survival, evasion, re- lieutenant warned. Signals intelligence Col. Marc E. Caudill, the Cope Tiger US sistance, and escape specialist with the indicated medium-range ballistic mis- exercise director. 374th Operations Support Squadron at siles were being readied for deployment. Yokota AB, Japan, was the jumpmaster Cope Tiger threw a range of scenarios Practice Makes Perfect aboard one of the C-17s bearing RTAF at its participants as part of LFEs, or Singapore sent eight factory-fresh personnel to the drop zone. Raethel large-force engagements. These entailed F-15SG multirole fighters. (One Air is a Cope Tiger veteran participating the whole spectrum of air operations, Guardsman joked he could detect that in his second iteration. “We try to get including air strikes, rescue missions, “new car smell” across the flight line.) [the Thais] to jump whenever we visit,” disaster response, airdrops, mobile air These new Eagles boast all the options: he said. A past participant of jumps at exercises in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and other locations, he said the joint jump is a rarity. “It’s a great opportunity to get these many guys in this environment. It can be tricky. ... It’s a good thing to practice this sort of operation as much as we can.” “This is a big deal, a first for the Royal Thai Army and Air Force,” said Capt. Mi- chael Recker, a C-17 operations officer for the exercise based at and pilot from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam’s 535th Airlift Squadron. Leading up to the jump, both C-17 crews and C-130 Above: A JAS-39D fighter, one of the Swedish Gripen fighters recently acquired by the Royal Thai Air Force. Right: An RTAF Dornier-Dassault Alpha Jet. defense threats, and more. By the close of the exercise, nearly 2,000 USAF, Thai, and Singaporean airmen generated more than 900 sorties. This year’s Cope Tiger involved several firsts. Both Thai and US officials sug- 34 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2012 with and against the latest model of their own F-15s with the visiting Singaporeans. The Singaporeans “are very well- trained, and they have a great jet,” Blau- fuss said. “You wouldn’t be able to tell they’re not our guys. ... [They] have a lot of skilled pilots.”

USAF photos by Capt. David Herndon If missions are executed correctly, blue forces should not be losing, several fliers observed. For first-timers, the experience of flying with the Thais and Singaporeans can be an eye-opener. “The proficiency of our allies and partners is ... high,” Croft acknowledged. A career F-16 pilot, Croft said he’d long heard USAF conventional wisdom that the F-15 was superior to everything else Capt. Raul Roldan (r), Cope Tiger C-130 liaison officer, discusses Hercules opera- in air-to-air combat. However, “I’ve sat tions with F-16 pilots from Singapore. The Republic of Singapore and Thailand field through debriefs, and sometimes it’s the some of the most modern air assets in the region. Thais [F-16s] and the [Singaporeans] who are clearing out the red air off [our] crews had been flying in challenging “We’re really getting a new experience F-15s’ backs,” he said. “That is interest- conditions, facing aggressive aerial and here,” said MSgt. Michael Ramsey, a ing to see.” ground threats, he noted. maintenance first sergeant with the 125th For the Royal Thai Air Force, the event The other day, “we won one, and FW. “It’s a smaller world every day. … If is an enormous undertaking. Cope Tiger’s we lost one,” he said of an airlift sortie we ever go to fight [in this region], we’re tabletop command post exercise begins where simulated surface-to-air threats going to do it with our allies.” months before the flight training phase; were employed. “We don’t get a chance First Lt. Jeff Blaufuss, an Eagle driver the planning iteration for the March event to do large-force employments from the with the Florida ANG, said that at Cope took place in Singapore last December. mobility side very often,” Recker com- Tiger his fellow pilots got to stretch Thailand, a designated major non-NATO mented. “It’s the first time I’ve done a operation muscles they rarely get to use US ally, has one of the oldest air forces in multinational exercise, and back home, at home. Asia—this year marks the 100th anniver- much of our training is over water, so the “Sometimes it’s to protect a target; sary of its military aviation branch—and feel is very different.” other times we’re clearing airspace for along with Singapore fields some of the Cope Tiger started out in the 1990s as strike packages,” he said. “We want to most modern air assets in the region. an event emphasizing air combat, but in protect our objectives, and we want to In airdrops over the Nam Phong recent years has evolved significantly. learn from what we do every day.” range north of Korat, Thai C-130 crews Now it entails simulated airdrop of hu- exercise the same procedures used by manitarian relief, combat search and Clearing Out the Red Air US aviators, and the Thais have used rescue, air interdiction, close air support, US, Thai, and Singaporean pilots and this training to great benefit, said Group and deep strike missions. Mobility is an crews were mixed and matched daily— Capt. Thawonwat Chantanakom, the increasingly important part of Cope Tiger. some in blue air, some in red air—and Thai exercise director. He noted that Thai officials and US officers alike this provided an excellent opportunity to the RTAF mobilized to deliver food and point to the range of operations undertaken not only push skills but learn from other water to wide swaths of the country last in just the last several years, from more pilots flying dissimilar aircraft. For the fall, bringing relief to areas devastated airdrop practice to to Guard, it offered the opportunity to fly by deadly floods, even as floodwaters forcible entry into denied airspace. Cope Tiger “has progressed steadily, both in scope and complexity,” said Col. Tommy Tan Ah Han, the RSAF exercise director. A pilot of F-5s, F-16 Block 52s, and the F-15SG, Tan said the assets ex- ercised are “increasingly advanced, and this has helped to add realism to training, enhancing the training benefits for the participating forces.” As USAF rearranges its force struc- ture, it’s unlikely the Florida Air Guard will be the last ANG unit to come to Thailand. The dozen F-15s of the 125th FW got the call because PACAF couldn’t spare any of its other air superiority as- sets, and the unit rose to the challenge, RTAF and USAF personnel prepare to board a C-17 at Don Muang Arpt., Thailand, said Caudill. on March 22, in preparation for a mass jump. AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2012 35 here, which is certainly not normally what our pilots are used to,” said Yost, one of the Korat mission commanders. Courtesy photo The Thais and Singaporeans have their own objectives for the exercise. Cope Tiger “serves as a great platform for exchanges and sharing so that our forces will be able to assist one another should the need arise,” the RTAF ex- ercise director, Thawonwat, observed. Led by the Thais, all three countries also participated in civil affairs projects in the communities surrounding Korat and The final day of the exercise featured Royal Thai Air Force and Royal Thai Army Udon Thani, providing assistance such troops conducting a high-altitude, low-opening jump. as school supplies and medical services during the course of the event. encroached up to Bangkok’s Don Muang ing abounded at the exercise that he’d be Nearly all participants interviewed Airport military runway. hard-pressed to get back in Korea. believe the exercise will only grow in On the combat side, Thawonwat said, “There is a lot less airspace restriction importance in coming years. America’s the Thais were eager to test out their and more room to get a bunch of quali- interests, as stipulated in the newly revised newly acquired Swedish Gripen fighters fications,” said Gonsalves. Dissimilar national defense strategy, are closely in a dissimilar combat scenario at Cope strike packages were a regular event, he bonded with those of its treaty allies, Tiger. They wanted to pair the Gripens pointed out; he flew with A-10s and Thai especially as the US moves to reassure its with and against both USAF F-15s and F-5s on his first sortie of the exercise. commitment to the stability of its allies Singapore’s new F-15SGs. “It was something I don’t get to do very in light of a changing military balance Among the allies, there was a sense often,” he said, noting A-10s would do in the region. there could be broader participation in air intercepts, then have Thai and US Asked about allied concerns over the event. forces come through, with the Warthogs China’s regional ambitions, Caudill said, “Now, we have just three nations; ... we swinging around on bomb runs. “This is important because it lets other hope in the future we can expand more. nations and potential adversaries know … This may be looked at,” Thawonwat Off the Charts that we are prepared, we train together, said. Thailand, along with Singapore, is A key part of the exercise for A-10 and we are ready to respond to any chal- a member of the Association of Southeast pilots was the chance to fly forward ob- lenge or provocation.” Asian Nations, which has embarked on servation and escort for combat search “Individually, we’re good. Collec- an effort to bring its 10 members together and rescue sorties. “It’s a unique oppor- tively, we’re off the charts,” said Lt. in a security community in several years. tunity,” Gonsalves said. Several A-10s Gen. Stanley T. Kresge, commander of Having observers participate in multilat- were paired up with Thai UH-1s and PACAF’s 13th Air Force, who attended eral events such as Cope Tiger could well Singaporean Super Puma crews to fly Cope Tiger’s closing ceremony along with serve stability and security in the region. escort and observe the rescuers attempt the Singaporean Air Chief Maj. Gen. Ng The same tactics used “to put soldiers to swoop in and pick up “survivors” in Chee Meng and RTAF in a drop zone, we can easily use those a drop zone. Gonsalves and other pilots Ittaporn Subhawong. Personal and last- ... to put medicine and medics on target dubbed the endeavor “rescort.” ing relationships between allies form at [or] ... relief materials on time and on Ideas and tactics were exchanged as events like this, with the inevitable result target,” Caudill said. the exercise progressed and helped all that all three get better at coordinating, Two weeks is a lot of time to be fly- parties get a better idea of how joint SAR controlling, and executing air operations. ing together, and a great deal of what would work in a real fight. “Culturally, “If our processes are right, we’ll suc- was learned at Cope Tiger was gained we piece together the gaps fairly well. cessfully meet any future challenge,” informally among the airmen day in Their English is a lot better than my Thai,” Kresge said. and day out. Gonsalves quipped. US forces are guests On the exercise’s final day, Kresge “[At] the tactical level, we are all of a long-standing and stalwart regional visited the contingent of Florida Air learning from each other,” Yost noted, and ally. Like the Philippines, Thailand was a Guardsmen at Korat to hand out awards much happens after the formal debrief. signatory to the 1954 Manila Pact, making and thank them for a job well done. He Pilots from all countries talked to each them America’s only two mutual defense took a moment to remind them why they other, and if someone in a flight suit with treaty allies in Southeast Asia. were flying in Thailand, thousands of an instructor patch was talking —regard- USAF assets were just as often in sup- miles from home. less of the nationality—others gathered porting roles during Cope Tiger operations “These F-15s are the most valuable around and hashed out what went right as they were in the lead. Indeed, of the resource in any future fight in this region,” or wrong. 79 aircraft taking flight over Thailand in Kresge noted. “If we have to go to war, it First Lt. Erik Gonsalves, an A-10 pilot March, fewer than 25 were USAF assets. will be an air war. ... Make no mistake,” from Osan AB, , took turns The Thais and Singaporeans field some he stated soberly. “I expect to call you. planning missions from RTAF’s Wing 23 of the most well-trained air arms in Asia. And some of you might not come back. located at Udon Thani, some 200 miles US aircraft sortie counts were relatively But you have proven you have the abil- north of Korat, not far from the Laotian low compared to the other two partners ity and skill to answer the call, should it border. He said opportunities for train- in the exercise. “We are in the minority ever come.” n 36 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2012