Anyone's first experience at any of these large force exercises is almost inevitably a gigantic helmet explosion. There's just so much going on and all the radios are blaring, that it takes a while to be able to get the big picture and filter out all the info you don't need so you can focus on what you do need. I wouldn't say that this is where things necessarily come together for the new guys, but it's (usually) the first time that they're exposed to the full-on strike warfare environment. Bottom line - it's a lot to absorb and get used to. Hopefully if they're paying attention to their lead, or the more experienced members of their own crew, the light will start to come on. Unlike at Red Flag (which focuses mostly on A/A, or so it seems), the guys at NSAWC do a really great job in the debrief which maximizes the learning for every given sortie.
Brett
From a still somewhat new guy's perspective on the above from Brett:
I've made one combat deployment and a single LFE (Large Force Exercise): Red Flag Nellis.
As for what Brett said, during my first front seat flight at RF, that was exactly the case. All I'd been used to was nothing more than one or two Prowlers doing ULT training in the local MOAs. Usually a notional strike with the other dudes in the jet playing the parts of maybe 3 or 4 strikers and an AWACS/E-2 and maybe a JTAC/FAC type. At RF, we had God only knows how many strikers, a no-shit AWACS and horrible debriefing. Couple that with unfamiliar airspace and you get a helmet fire compounded by the weight on ass switch.
But you may say "Bubba, you made a combat deployment" Yeah... but that was 4.5 months of single jet ops supporting dudes on the ground... nothing against a full blown IADS in support of an actual strike package. It was one of those thing where like Brett said, part of the issue was filtering. I had to quick fast and in a hurry figure out what pretained to me and what didn't... especially b/c some of the info was coming over two radios, and some was coming over one or the other.
Once I started to get the filter calibrated, it became a little easier to figure out what was going on. Still too late to pull that flight out of the shitter, but there was an increase in my overall SA as the flight progressed.
As a still relatively new guy, that was a huge wake up call. Before that, I never had to listen to more than two radios.. and it was really easy to distinguish what was for us and what wasn't. During the deployment, if it pretained to us, it was directed to us: Tron 01, FAC 11, blah blah blah".
At RF, it wasn't so easy. The AWACS could be passing info to a division of Hornets or AMX's and we'd need to react somehow to the info. That was where my major SA dump occurred. Figuring out that "Hey... the AWACS just told the AMX's x, y, and z. That means we need to do a and b."
But like has been alluded to, I learned from the flight and debrief. My next RF flight, my filter was more calibrated so I was able to decipher the info and make better decisions.
It also showed in my next ULT hop. Even with the striker being played by the other dudes in the flight, my decision making process was more efficient.
So like Brett said, it didn't all just come together at RF. Yet the total experience... the good flights and the "bad"... taught me a few things that I was able to apply and make myself a bit better ECMO.
