On December 5, 2021, the US Air Force's 317th Airlift Squadron participated in the "Covert Yeti" and "Agile Operations Application" (ACE) exercises held in Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, practicing the ability to use the concept of "Agile Operations Application" tactics, techniques, and processes to respond to sudden conflicts.

In the "Hidden Snowman" exercise, pilots from the 317th Air Transport Squadron flew C-130J transport planes to perform various types of missions and achieved common objectives at multiple locations. Based on the evolution of simulated battlefield forms, force the crew members to fully utilize various available communication methods at all levels, such as tactical data links, satellite radios, or high-frequency radios, to maintain a mutual tracking and perception situation. The crew members, as formation leaders, make flexible decisions midway through the mission, making ad hoc judgments and decisions on where to transport air cargo to better support the overall combat mission. Major Darshan Subramanian, the operational commander of the 317th Airlift Squadron, stated, 'We must have the ability to execute missions in a distributed mode with the lowest level of support, complicating the enemy's positioning plan for us.'.

In this exercise, personnel from the 7th Bomber Squadron provided assistance to the 317th Airlift Squadron, while members of the 7th Logistics Preparation Squadron provided forklift and forklift training for maintenance personnel. The flight crew leader and the loading and unloading team leader use forklifts to load and unload goods, verifying that a single pilot can have comprehensive mission capabilities to avoid deploying a large number of personnel in war zones.

After completing the training subjects, each participating crew member experienced a takeoff mission to ensure "survivability". Each crew utilizes crew resource management to safely evacuate the attacked airport in formation, and then rejoin the flight formation to maintain data connectivity and return to Deiss Air Force Base.

Source: Global Aviation Information