Mass mobility exercise with nearly 70 cargo planes at Nellis Air Force Base

Published on: May 30, 2012 at 7:00 PM

On May 23, the U.S. Air Force Weapons School conducted its Mobility Forces Exercise, or MAFEX, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

Nearly 70 aircraft, primarily consisting of C-17 Globemaster III and C-130 Hercules aircraft, operated in the Nevada Test and Training Range simulating a “forced entry” operation. In the scenario, U.S. forces had to pentrate a defended enemy country to put troops on the ground through combined airdrops of 100 paratroops and supporting equipment and landings on unprepared landing strip.

Part of the six-month Weapons Instructor Course, the exercise included units from multiple services from bases around the world, syncronized to arrive on the Nevada range in an orchestrated, combined force, as the following image shows.

Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Lawrence Crespo

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
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