I had the good fortune to be in San Francisco whilst the above exercises were taking place at Nellis AFB, so a quick visit was in order to capture the visitors. Las Vegas in late August – what could go wrong? 
I also realised by looking at previous images that I was going to need further reach than my 18-300mm, so a quick rent of a Tamron 150-600mm was organised. I’d looked at buying this lens previously and thought that this would be great opportunity to try it out. Given the prevailing conditions and the fact that I had to shoot at ISO400 or ISO500 to get a decent shutter speed, I was quite impressed. I’m going to wait to see what the new Nikon 200mm-500mm f5.6 is like before deciding what to buy.
So, the good news was that nearly all the frames I wanted to photograph actually flew – the bad news was that the weather was not great (cloudy skies all day) and all the Israeli’s did left breaks for 21L. 🙁
Also flying, but not listed below, were F35A Lighning II’s from 422nd TES, Nellis AFB, NV and AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms from HMLA-369, USMC.
There was a great selection of participating units, including (courtesy Nellis Exercises):
| Red Team | F-15C/F-16C | 64 Aggressor Squadron, Nellis AFB, NV |
| Escort | F-22 | 15th Wing, 19th FS, Hickam AFB, HI |
| F-16C/D | 301st FW, 457th FS, Carswell ARS, Ft Worth TX | |
| F-16C/D | 54th FG, 311th FS, Holloman AFB, NM | |
| F-16C | 56th FW, 61st TFS, Luke AFB, AZ | |
| Interdiction | A-10 | 53rd AW, 422nd TES, Nellis AFB, NV |
| SEAD | F-16CM | 20th FW, 77th FS, Shaw AFB, SC |
| EA-18G | VAQ-131, NAS Whidbey Island, WA (did not fly on 25 Aug) | |
| Airlift | C-17 | 437th Airlift Wing, Charleston AFB, SC |
| Command & Control | E-3/E-8 | 552nd ACW, Tinker AFB, OK |
| Refueling | KC-135 | 22nd ARW, 931st ARG, McConnell AFB, KS |
| Search & Rescue | HH-60 | 55 RQS, Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ |
| Also participating | F-15D/I | Israeli Air Force |
| F-16AM/BM | Royal Jordanian Air Force | |
| F-16C/D | 425FS, Luke AFB, AZ (Republic of Singapore Air Force) | |
| KC-707 | Israeli Air Force | |
| HC-130J | 79RQS, Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ | |
| CH-47 | Republic of Singapore Air Force |
