"Rodeo's on!" With those words, Air Force Brig. Gen. Scott Gray, commander of Air Mobility Rodeo 2005, opened the world's premier airlift competition on 19 June. Rodeo, held at McChord AFB near Tacoma, Washington, focuses on improving the skills of air mobility professionals.
"Rodeo is a warfighters' competition. It's not just for show," added Gray, whose regular job is commanding the Air Mobility Warfare Center at Fort Dix, New Jersey. "All the teams compete to determine the best of the best in such critical skills as airdrop, air refueling, aerial port, aeromedical evacuation, assault landings, security forces, and aircraft maintenance. Despite ongoing demands of the global war on terror, we must provide continued, realistic, and demanding training opportunities to all our air mobility forces. Rodeo is absolutely critical to this effort."
Twenty-five US teams and six international teams flying C-130, C-130J, C-5, C-17, C-21, and C-160 airlifters and KC-130, KC-135, and KC-10 tankers competed during the weeklong event. An additional nine countries sent observers. Overall, participation was down from previous Rodeos, though, as many Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command units did not field teams because of operational commitments. Nonetheless, the competition was just as spirited as in the past.
In the air, the crews combined to fly sixty-seven sorties that included precisely navigating waypoints at specified times; air refueling; and airdropping heavy equipment, container delivery system bundles, or some of the more than 2,000 Army paratroopers who participated. On the ground, security forces teams fired shotguns and pistols for accuracy; aeromedical evacuation teams made triage assessments on dummy casualties; and aerial porters quickly loaded and unloaded an aircraft while its engines were running and navigated an obstacle course in a Tunner cargo-loading vehicle.
At the end of the week, the 6th Air Mobility Wing claimed Rodeo's top honors. The KC-135 unit from MacDill AFB, Florida, was awarded the Gen. William G. Moore, Jr., Trophy for being the wing best prepared to execute its mission. The award is based on all phases of the competition: aerial port, security forces, maintenance, and flying proficiency. The wing was also assessed in the fit-to-fight competition, which measures how well selected members of the team meet the Air Force's physical fitness standards. The winner of the best overall wing competition is based on what the Air Force calls a z-score. The score is derived from a mathematical formula that allows dissimilar events on dissimilar platforms to be compared on an equal footing.
A new twist at Rodeo 2005 was that all of the personnel drops and aeromedical team events took place at night, reflecting current operational practices. Likewise, airlifters big and small flown into potentially hostile areas now carry a security forces team with them, and the competition at Rodeo reflected that. During the security forces team competition, an hour-long asset protection exercise, a two-person security forces team reacted to a range of situations—from negotiating with an inattentive host nation gate guard, to belligerent protesters, to an intruder trying to place a satchel charge on the aircraft.
The C-130J participated in Rodeo for the first time this year and claimed the trophies for both Best C-130 Wing and Best Airdrop. "Over the course of the competition, we knew we were doing pretty well," said Col. Andy Hamilton, operations group commander for the 314th Airlift Wing from Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, which flew the C-130J in the competition. "We had some really high-speed people on this team; our people and equipment did well. Everybody else was gunning for the C-130Js, but no other airlifter could quite reach us." The C-130J crew put one of its container delivery system airdrop loads less than forty feet from the target, besting the drops from the other C-130, C-160, and C-17 units.
The US Marine Corps also participated in Rodeo with both an older KC-130R and a factory-fresh KC-130J. "We participated in all of the airdrop events, including heavy equipment, container delivery system, and personnel," said Maj. Jason Julian, team chief for VMGR-352, the Hercules tanker squadron at MCAS Miramar, California. "We brought our newest KC-130J, which we just got in May. We wanted to see if the tactics and procedures that the Marine Corps has developed worked with those of the Air Force, and they do. We were very competitive."
The 60th AMW at Travis AFB, California, which consists of both airlift and tanker squadrons, did well in the competition, winning awards for Best C-5 Wing and Best Airland Wing on the transport side and Best KC-10 Wing and Best Tanker Wing on the aerial refueling side. The Best International Team award went to the United Kingdom. The winning team, members of 47 Squadron based at RAF Lyneham, the Royal Air Force's main C-130 base, competed with a Hercules C Mk. 3—also known as a C-130K.
During the awards ceremony, which was broadcast live to air mobility bases around the world via satellite and through the Internet, the C-141 StarLifter was recognized as its forty-year service career draws to a close. A historical video of the this first jet transport and its accomplishments was shown, accompanied by vocalists with the Air Force Band of the Golden West singing the Gladys Knight hit, "Neither One of Us Wants To Be the First To Say Good-Bye." The Best C-141 Wing Trophy, which had been awarded at Rodeos for the past three decades, was officially retired and presented to Lockheed Martin. George Shultz, vice president of the C-5 Modernization program at Lockheed Martin, accepted the trophy from Gray and Gen. John Handy, commander of US Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command.
Rodeo has been held regularly since 1962; however, real-world events prevented Rodeo from being held since the last one in 2000. This competition was the fourth time McChord AFB served as host.
"Rodeo 2005 allowed us to show what we learned in Afghanistan and Iraq and in humanitarian airlifts like the tsunami relief earlier this year," said Gray. "This competition was an awesome demonstration of air mobility in the air and on the ground."
Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.
