Dyess AFB Airmen complete BACE exercise

Airmen from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, and Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, completed a Bomber Agile Combat Employment (BACE) exercise at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, Texas.

The training is part of a Dyess AFB initiative to developand improve the ability to rapidly deploy the B-1B Lancer, personnel andequipment to austere or unfamiliar locations worldwide in support of Air Forceand combatant command strategic objectives.

“As we look toward our future, and the threats we mayencounter, this training will help us deploy and employ our aircraft andpersonnel quickly within much closer striking range of our adversary,” saidMaj. Gen. Jim Dawkins Jr., Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike OperationsCenter commander. “We want to be agile as we move around unpredictably with asmall footprint. This experiment allows us to see how small our footprint canbe while generating combat power.”

During the exercise, three C-130J Super Hercules aircraftfrom the 317th Airlift Wing and the 19th Airlift Wing transported the equipmentand personnel needed to successfully maintain and support flying operations fortwo B-1B Lancers from the 7th Bomb Wing’s 9th Bomb Squadron.

Both the 317th Airlift Wing and the 7th Bomb Wing arestationed at Dyess AFB, making it the only Air Force base to host both bomberand transport aircraft at the same location.

“Integrating both of our wings allows us to practice and executeemployment methods that would take a great deal of coordination if notgeographically collocated,” said Lt. Col. Brenton Gaylord, 317th AW chief ofsafety. “Even though our wings have trained together before, this scenario isgroundbreaking because it is developing new competencies in both communitiespreparing us to execute distributive operations in the future. The planning andlogistics of organically integrating tactical airlift and strategic bombingassets without centralized command and control drives toward a level of agilitythat will be necessary in the Air Force going forward.”

The exercise also gave airmen across the base theopportunity to develop new competencies to help execute potential real-worldoperations.

Airmen with the 7th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron conductedminimum regeneration time maintenance on the B-1B Lancer, where they tested theproficiency of using airmen from multiple career fields, coming together, tolaunch aircraft as quickly as possible.

“Completing this training is important because the world is constantly changing and we need to be able to provide global power to combatant commanders throughout the world,” said Maj. Kolt, 9th Bomb Squadron B-1B Lancer instructor pilot. “As we continue to perform these types of exercises we are going to increase its complexity so we can successfully complete real-world missions like these, if and when, they come our way.”

Source: US Air Force