By Troy Turner
The 187th Fighter Wing, Alabama Air National Guard, is participating in Sentry Savannah 2024 and flying in a major exercise with other units for the first time with its new F-35 Lightning II Red Tails.
Sentry Savannah 2024 is the Air National Guard’s premier air-to-air fighter integration exercise showcasing the nation’s combat readiness. The 2024 training involves 775 participants and 40 aircraft, representing six units.
The 187th Fighter Wing based in Montgomery participated in previous exercises with its F-16 fighter jets, but the unit integrated into its new F-35s officially earlier this year after receiving its first three in December 2023. The Red Tails designation is a tribute to the famed World War II Tuskegee Airmen.
Sentry Savannah is intended as an exercise that trains the warfighter to operate and dominate air superiority. It is hosted by the Air Dominance Center at Savannah’s Combat Readiness Training Center.
“Sentry Savannah is the National Guard’s premier counter air exercise specializing in fourth- and fifth-generation fighter tactics,” said then-Lt. Col. Steven Thomas when he served as exercise director in 2022. “The purpose of the exercise is to be able to bring in all of these different assets and be able to train face-to-face and learn from each other, and learn the different tactics that each fighter brings to a fight with a near-peer adversary.”
Throughout previous Sentry Savannah exercises, simulated air battles were conducted in a military operations airspace stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to Orlando, Florida, including 30-120 miles off the East Coast. The 2024 exercise is taking place May 6-18.
In addition to providing the air battle practice space, Sentry Savannah enables pilots to accomplish a significant portion of their annual flying requirements in just two weeks.
“Another advantage of Sentry Savannah is that each unit has to pick up and do operations away from home station, which makes you get more into the expeditionary mindset,” said Kevin Danaher, who flew as a captain and Florida Air National Guard pilot in the 2022 exercise. “You have to think critically, innovate and overcome the inevitable challenges you’re going to have from doing your operations not at home, which mimics what we do when we actually project power in real-world situations.”
Alabama’s move to the F-35
The 187th Fighter Wing with the Alabama Air National Guard is one of only three Guard units in the nation to be equipped with the fifth-generation F-35 multi-role stealth jet, and a total of 20 F-35s are expected to fill its ranks over the next five years, with a goal of doing so by the end of 2025.
The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is the U.S. Department of Defense’s most expensive weapon system program. DOD estimates it will cost nearly $1.7 trillion to buy, operate and sustain the aircraft and systems over its lifetime.
A single aircraft can cost more than $80 million when fully operational.
Planning for the transition from F-16s to the F-35s continued for almost a decade prior to the first Lightnings arriving in Montgomery. Although only three arrived in the first grouping, that trio began flying training sorties on Dec. 14.
“The F-35 changes the role that the 187th serves in the United States’ application of airpower,” said Maj. Bart Smith, a 187th Fighter Wing weapons instructor. “I’ve had the opportunity to experience the awesome capabilities that the F-35A brings to the joint fight. What truly separates the 187th apart will never be the aircraft, but the Airmen that equip, maintain and fly it.”
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Troy Turner is the editor and senior consultant for AlaDefense.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Photo credits: U.S. Air National Guard photos by Master Sgt. Morgan R. Whitehouse.
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