Red Flag: America's Top Gun for Bombers

Out over the Nevada Test and Training Range, north of Las Vegas, the Air Force runs one of the most demanding combat exercises in its arsenal. Exercise Red Flag began in the mid nineteen seventies after studies reportedly showed that pilots who survived their first ten combat missions were far more likely to survive the rest of a war. The solution was to give pilots those ten missions before the shooting started, against the most realistic opposition possible.

Red Flag pits American and allied aircrews against simulated enemy defenses and aggressor pilots trained in adversary tactics. Participants fly from Nellis Air Force Base and range across millions of acres of restricted airspace. Many allied nations have sent pilots through the program, and its lessons have quietly shaped air campaigns since Vietnam.