Spiral 3 underway for JEFX ’06

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Ross Tweten
  • Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment ’06 Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) --  Spiral 3 of the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment ‘06 kicked off March 2 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

JEFX is an Air Force chief of staff-sponsored, major command-executed series of experiments that combine live-fly, live-play ground and naval forces, simulation and technology insertions into a warfighting environment.

The experiment is a venue for groundbreaking command and control technology and processes that can be fielded and provided to the warfighter rapidly. JEFX ’06 involves coalition, all services, joint and other Department of Defense agencies from bases across the United States, England, Australia and Canada.

“JEFX incorporates three spiral events and a main experiment event,” said Scott Sampson, execution director. “Spiral 1 is essentially a technology demonstration of the Air Force chief of staff-directed command and control tools or ‘initiatives’ where key warfighters provide initial feedback to developers that the developers then use to modify or ‘spiral’ the initiative prior to Spiral 2.”

During Spiral 3, warfighters, manning an operationally representative Combined Air and Space Operations Center, use the initiatives and systems, assess them for their operational utility, and submit desired changes, Mr. Sampson said. The developers use this assessment feedback to modify the systems before the main experiment.

“Simply put, Spiral 3 is considered the pre-game warm-up for the main experiment,” said Col. Chuck Parks, director of the Air Force Experiment Office. "The main experiment is where we bring it all together functioning under an operationally realistic environment and scenario, with the focus of providing fielding recommendations to the CSAF at the end of JEFX.”

The CAOC is the experiment’s environment, designed to execute the air and space component of a war, combining operators and systems from all different air assets and coalition forces to make one integrated system.

The goals of this experiment are to better integrate CAOC processes, expand the use of data links, and extend networks to link the operational and tactical levels of execution.

The specific objectives of Spiral 3 are:

-- Train participants on the new initiatives and systems.

-- Wring out the communications architecture for the CAOC, AF wings, strategic sites and other service component sites as well as the computer modeling and simulation architecture.

-- Wring out the computer modeling and simulation architecture for the synthetic battlespace.

-– Integrate all available CAOC systems and build cohesive system architecture.

-- Conduct process workout of key CAOC processes.

-- Develop and refine tactics, techniques, and procedures for tools, initiatives and processes.

-- Conduct crisis action planning and produce deliverables required for MainEx.

-- Collect assessment feedback to support “spiraling” systems, initiatives and processes for MainEx experimentation.

-- Reduce the risks for the successful execution of the main experiment.

-- Safely conduct live-fly fidelity drills.

-- Conduct operational utility and technical assessments.

-- Demonstrate maritime capability.

Airmen, Sailors and Soldiers are all participating in the exercise for Spiral 3 and main exercise. There are 35 allied participants occupying operator positions throughout the CAOC.

It’s important that the United States’ allies understand the developments going on here, said Royal Air Force Group Capt. Paddy Teakle, deputy air operations center director.

“In the end, if we go to war we are fighting the same war,” he said. “We want to work on our ability to work shoulder to shoulder with our allies so everybody involved in the process is treated the same. Working on our ability to share the planning processes so there is a transparent understanding of where we are in the joint coalition fight is part of what the spiral environment is about.”

“We fight with the coalition,” Colonel Parks said. “They’re part of the defense of this nation. In today’s warfighting environment, going single-ship is null and void.”

Spiral 3 is scheduled to end March 11 with the main experiment following in April.