Cherry Point provides staging area for coalition exercise

CHERRY POINT AIR STATION — The flight line at Cherry Point air station could have been called pit lane Thursday as some of the fastest fighter jets in the world came in as part of Exercise Bold Quest 2009.

“It’s like a NASCAR pit stop for aircraft,” said Marine Master Sgt. Chuck Albrecht, as an F/A-18 taxied up the tarmac to Pit One at Cherry Point to take on jet fuel.

“You want to get the aircraft back into the air as soon as possible,” Albrecht said.

One after another, the planes flew in, then out, all playing close air support roles for personnel at nearby Camp Lejeune.

The combat identification capability demonstration is being conducted by U.S. Joint Forces Command.

There are 22 aircraft, 800 personnel and 80 ground vehicles taking part in the coalition event whose participants include the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Aircraft from East Coast and West Coast air installations flew in for the event using Cherry Point as the staging area.

The annual event tests emerging technologies to be used on the battlefield of tomorrow.

“Bold Quest is an event or a technology demonstration to allow warfighters both in the air and on the ground of the attack the appropriate target both quickly and efficiently and not hurt any of the good guys,” said Maj. James Kettles of the Canadian Air Force.

“Not one nation or one community can make all the mistakes so when you get together and share all the information, how things went well, how things went bad, it just makes everything work so much smoother,” Kettles said. “It kind of works for team cohesiveness as well.”

“Most of the events that we’re involved in now are all coalition,” Kettles said. “It’s quite a challenging exercise to have everybody coordinated all at the same time to make sure everything’s done safely.”

“The exercise is all about coalition combat identification,” Albrecht said.

When multiple nations get together to undertake a joint operation, having everyone on the same page is vital to the safety of crew on the ground and in the air.

One of the core technologies being demonstrated is called SWIFT, for Smart-Pull Warfighter Information for Targeting combat information server. The unit brings together information from multiple sources and unifies it so everyone involved is clear about their role. The SWIFT system will hopefully reduce the possibility of friendly fire incidents on the battlefield.