Air Force Conducts Large-Scale Soaring Eagle Exercise... Publicly Revealed After 5 Years

From January 29 to February 5 this year, during the Soaring Eagle training exercise, an attack formation composed of the Air Force's main fighter jets, including F-15K, KF-16, and F-4E, was flying to attack virtual key targets such as enemy missile bases. (Photo by the Air Force)

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The Air Force will publicly conduct a large-scale comprehensive air training exercise for the first time in five years.

According to the Air Force on the 20th, the first half 'Soaring Eagle' training will be held from the 20th to the 24th at the 29th Tactical Development Training Flight Squadron (hereafter 29th Squadron). According to the Air Force, this training will include more than 70 aircraft such as the latest stealth fighter F-35A, F-15K, F-16, KF-16, FA-50, F-4E, F-5 fighters, KA-1 tactical control aircraft, E-737 airborne control aircraft, CN-235 transport aircraft, and about 200 mission personnel participating.

The training is conducted by dividing forces into friendly 'Blue Air' and virtual enemy 'Red Air' under a realistic scenario assuming a large-scale infiltration of enemy air power.

The virtual enemy creates a realistic infiltration situation, and our pilots will hone their combat skills to effectively respond to enemy air threats by experiencing enemy air tactics in advance.

The training continues with various scenarios such as defensive air support operations to detect, identify, and intercept enemy aerospace forces from long distances; large-scale attack formation training to punish and strike the enemy's core forces and provocation points; and emergency air interdiction operations to eliminate threats such as enemy missiles and supply routes in rapidly changing battlefield situations in real time.

In addition, the Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) system, which displays all flight data such as aircraft altitude, speed, and direction, as well as virtual weapon firing results in real time, is applied so that pilots can accurately grasp the battlefield situation and improve their combat performance.

In particular, this training plans to verify integrated tactics between 4th and 5th generation forces by operating 4th generation and 5th generation aircraft in an integrated manner.

The Soaring Eagle training is a large-scale, theater-level comprehensive air training exercise conducted solely by the Republic of Korea Air Force to prevent a massive surprise infiltration of enemy air power. It has been conducted twice a year since 2008 to maintain the Air Force's firm air defense posture and to hone pilots' combat skills.

Since 2018, when inter-Korean relations were in a thaw mode due to the PyeongChang Olympics and inter-Korean summits, the fact of this training was not disclosed externally. However, as North Korea's provocation levels have recently increased, the training is being conducted publicly for the first time in five years. This is seen as a warning message to North Korea, which is heightening tensions with signs of nuclear test preparations and successive ballistic missile provocations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.