Photo By Staff Sgt. Tylir Meyer | U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Joshua Pekowski, left, and Senior Airman Darnell Edwards,...... read more read more
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KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea — Airmen assigned to the 51st Fighter Wing deployed to Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea, Nov. 3-7, 2025 to participate in the biannual joint, combined training exercise Freedom Flag 25-2.
FF 25-2 is designed to further strengthen flying interoperability and sharpen the combined readiness of the ROK and U.S. forces through face-to-face combined mission planning, flying execution and debriefing.
“It’s important to get those reps in with ROKAF for the possibility that if a real-world scenario arises, we are able to integrate and be able to–at a moment’s notice–do any mission required and build that cooperative relationship now,” said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Curtis Tuttle, 51st Maintenance Group operating location specialist section chief.
Freedom Flag enhances the cooperation in the U.S.-ROK alliance by exercising lethality in the air domain, and enhancing their ability to deter, defend and defeat any adversary.
“The whole purpose is to get our pilots that simulated combat experience, because the more combat experience they have, the more likely they are to come out of a dog fight should they need to,” said U.S. Staff Sgt. Johnny Nieves, 51st MXG dedicated crew chief.
Strengthening combined precision strike capabilities and practicing combat search and rescue operations through the exercise prepares mission commanders and aircrews to operate effectively in contested environments with significant surface-to-air and air-to-air threats.
“Those missions don’t just happen, we coordinate heavily with the Marines and ROKAF on what times we need to go up, how many aircraft we’re sending, what we plan to fly, what they plan to fly, who’s red air and who’s blue air—there’s a lot of different things we work out before those sorties go out,” said Nieves. “Sometimes they’ll run defense up there and they’ll do our home SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air Defense] missions.”
Maintainers are among the key people who make these missions possible. Every facet of the maintenance team is critical to ensuring safe operations in the air and that the aircraft are ready to perform any mission required.
“It’s not a one-person team. The whole team一from engines, avionics, electrical and environmental—everyone has their subject matter experts and respective areas to make one person reliable and safe while they do their mission to defend the peninsula,” said Tuttle.
This exercise also provided an opportunity for 51st MXG maintainers to collaborate and become more familiar with the 35th Fighter Squadron and 35th Fighter Generation Squadron as Super Squadron Phase II is underway.
“It’s been a good opportunity to get an idea of how they operate, what’s the difference and how we can apply what they do here to what we do at Osan to get the best mix of both worlds,” said Nieves. “It’s gonna set us up pretty well for when they start to show up at Osan.”
This exercise strengthened Seventh Air Force’s credibility to deploy, sustain and reposition joint forces across a variety of operating locations. By testing these capabilities, the exercise supports broader maneuver strategies and ensures U.S. and allied Airmen remain ready to defend national and partner nation interests at a moment’s notice.
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.25.2025 02:29 |
| Story ID: | 552152 |
| Location: | KUNSAN AIR BASE, KR |
| Web Views: | 8 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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