Execution team orchestrates experimentation

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Christine D. Millette
  • Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2004 Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) --  The operators are running through the trenches of the war scenario on the floor of the Combined Air and Space Operations Center. Meanwhile, the chief of the execution phase and his team for Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2004 are directing the play and stimulating the operations.

They are looking for benefits for tomorrow’s warfighters.

The operations center here is home of JEFX 04, the fifth in a series of large-scale experiments designed to assess emerging command and control technologies and processes for the 21st-century warfighter. It is sponsored by the Air Force chief of staff.

“We create a synthetic battlespace to stimulate the activity of an operational CAOC enabling the warfighters manning (it to use) leading-edge command and control tools and processes and assess them for operational (use),” said Scott Sampson, JEFX 04 execution chief.

Mr. Sampson, a Department of Defense civilian assigned to the 505th Command and Control Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., worked with a “five-ship” execution team from around the Air Force to plan, organize and execute the experiment. The team included people from the Air Force’s experimentation office at Langley Air Force Base, Va.; Air Combat Command Communications and Information Systems also at Langley; the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass.; 8th Air Force at Barksdale AFB, La.; and the 505th Command and Control Wing which also operates here.

The team formed to bring direction and guidance to the nearly 3,400 participants in JEFX 04 which incorporates three “spiral” events and a main experiment conducted throughout eight months. As execution leader, people from the 505th CCW used 30 working groups from across the wing dealing with everything from live flying to CAOC floor plans.

“The 505th integrated 41 models and simulations from eight major locations around the Air Force and Army, and blended this with live activity using 51 aircraft to create the synthetic battlespace for JEFX 04,” Mr. Sampson said. “We used CSAF guidance on process focus areas, objectives and the CSAF-approved initiatives to design the overall experiment including the scenario and synthetic battlespace.”

He said the wing staff develops and uses a master scenario event list which ties stimulus events to each initiative so people have the opportunity to sufficiently assess them. There are typically more than 200 master scenario events performed each day, said Mr. Sampson.

“As we create and orchestrate the battlespace, and stimulate the initiatives, we are responsible for the frequency and consistency of the (master scenario event lists), and getting the most out of each of the initiatives,” he said.

Lt. Col. Mark Horn is commander of the 505th Exercise Control Squadron and the scenario control point of contact here. Colonel Horn and his team at Hurlburt Field are responsible for making sure the modeling and simulations flow smoothly and are adequate for the experiment.

They coordinate the scenario input with CAOC leaders and assessors and coordinate master scenario events for different initiatives. They also troubleshoot to help get the most out of each initiative, said the colonel.

Colonel Horn funnels all his information through Mr. Sampson, who addresses any scheduling conflicts between the initiative leaders. Mr. Sampson is the execution leader for the experiment, conducting the mass briefings for the participants each morning, creating the plan for the information management team and running the team leaders meeting each day.

“By bringing the team (leaders) together, we are able to hash out the individual initiative priorities, and adjust the experiment accordingly,” he said.

The direction of the experiment begins from the initial conference, usually held in July of the previous year. The execution team runs through the necessary steps to properly run the experiment, from the information sharing about objectives and initial planning of Spiral 1, to the tool training of Spiral 2, the high-fidelity processing of Spiral 3, to the main experiment.

“From what I have seen, this has been the best JEFX to date,” Colonel Horn said. “The modeling and simulation architecture is much more mature than in the past experiments, and the spirals were so involved that the execution has been almost trouble-free in the main experiment.”

The main experiment runs through Aug. 5. The warfighter assessment feedback will then be assembled. The final JEFX 04 report is due in November. This report will outline what initiatives will be ready for immediate use in the field, and what initiatives need more engineering.