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Red Flag exercises mean more planes, more noise

Posted at 12:10 PM, Jan 28, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-28 17:48:21-05

Las Vegas residents might notice a few more military planes in the skies over the valley through Feb. 14.

Red Flag exercises are underway and will continue through Feb. 14. During this time, there will be increased flight operations and aircraft noise.

More than 80 aircraft are scheduled to depart Nellis twice a day and may remain in the air for up to five hours during Red Flag. There may be night launches as well to allow air crews to train for nighttime combat operations.

The Red Flag exercise is organized at Nellis Air Force Base and hosted north of Las Vegas on the Nevada Test and Training Range -- the U.S. Air Force's premier military training area with more than 12,000 square miles of airspace and 2.9 million acres of land.

With 1,900 possible targets, realistic threat systems and an opposing enemy force that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world, Nellis and the NTTR are the home of a "peacetime battlefield," providing combat air forces with the ability to train to fight together, survive together and win together.

Red Flag gives aircrew an opportunity to experience advanced, relevant, and realistic combat-like situations in a controlled environment to increase their ability to complete missions and safely return home. It also prepares maintenance personnel, ground controllers, space and cyber operators to support those missions within the same tactical environment.