Photo By Tech. Sgt. Blake Gonzales | U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Kayli Khamsanit, 627th Logistics Readiness Squadron...... read more read more
The 62d Airlift Wing, the 627th Air Base Group, and various joint and coalition partners executed Operation KENNEY STRIKES BACK, a 62d AW planned exercise designed to educate, train, and validate the Wing’s ability to rapidly generate forces, project power, and develop combat airlift capabilities with partner and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific theater, Dec. 6-14, 2025.
Held primarily in various parts of Australia, the 62d AW integrated over 300 total force, joint, and coalition partners, allies, and personnel. This included members of the 446th Airlift Wing, the 437th Airlift Wing, 3rd Wing, 15th Wing, the U.S. Army’s I Corps, the United States Transportation Command’s Joint Communications Support Element, the Royal Australian Air Force, Australian Army, and more.
“Our whole purpose for this exercise was to see how quickly we could get out the door,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Travis Elliott, 62d Operations Group commander and Air Expeditionary Wing commander for OKSB. “We don’t want our joint and coalition partners waiting on Team McChord. We want to be in place, delivering anything, anywhere, any time that it’s needed. In order to do that, we have to make sure that we identify everything that’s needed prior to leaving from home. This was a way to validate that package.”
Building off of last year’s Operation KENNEY’S RETURN, OKSB deployed a Mission Generation Force Element geographically separated between three primary locations. Executed and planned between the 4th, 7th, and 8th Airlift Squadrons, this iteration nearly doubled the amount of personnel, equipment, and aircraft participants, while still meeting rapid generation deployment timelines, ultimately proving the Wing’s ability to deploy into the Indo-Pacific quickly and operate effectively.
“OKSB was our opportunity as the 62d AW to prove how fast we can get into the theater, how lean we can be and how powerfully we can fight,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Marcus Malecek, exercise director for OKSB. “We designed the medium package MGFE to be leaner and faster so we could get into the Indo-Pacific theater, and still be able to operate and maintain the aircraft. We engaged with all the mission sets we expect to see in the Indo-Pacific, and proved that the 62d AW is able to perform in the hardest threat environments that we have.”
OKSB not only allowed the 62d AW to exercise rapid generation capabilities, but also integrate with local allies and partners to perform coalition operations. One of the capabilities demonstrated throughout the exercise was the transportation of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems from the Australian Army’s 10th Brigade, a maneuver that not only allowed interoperability between coalition forces, but sharpened the lethality of all components through realistic training scenarios.
“Working with our Australian counterparts was another desired learning objective, just really finding better ways to partner with them,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Bradley Wills, 4th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron commander for OKSB. “We worked with their Australian Army to practice with loading and unloading their HIMARS, as well as the Royal Australian Air Force to help work through some of the air space we were in. There was a lot of partnership building. We worked some contingency plans, and developed tactics, techniques, and procedures on the fly. Having all those people together and talking about it, a lot of innovation and proficiency happened.”
The exercise also provided opportunities for the 62d Maintenance Group and the 62d Aerial Port Squadron to integrate with Australian counterparts. That opportunity helped develop the best practices necessary to keep Team McChord’s aircraft ready to fly, while ensuring the equipment and cargo needed for mission execution were properly certified and loaded.
“Maintenance and APS are what kept the operations going,” said Malecek. “Anytime you try and move 260 people across the world, there’s going to be challenges associated with that. Maintenance is here to help support our aircraft, to get us off the ground, and to figure out the right number of people, parts and equipment needed to sustain operations. APS has really been moving the mission. They’ve been preparing the cargo, they’ve been helping the Australian Army get their equipment certified and loaded so we can bring them into theater and perform the mission that’s required of them. All that coming together to allow the operations to even happen in the first place.”
As the maneuver arm of the Joint Force, OKSB allowed the 62d AW to improve the processes for effective combat airlift, and get the repetitions necessary to effectively move personnel, material, and supplies at a speed and scale required for permissive and contested operations.
“We made a lot of progress on developing what we need from an operations, maintenance, and support perspective,” said Wills. “It’s really all the experts in each of their career fields providing that input to the rest of the team. Partnerships are also key. The Pacific is vast, and there’s just not a lot of places to land aircraft and project power, so if we can build good partnerships with those people, then we’ll have more places that we can operate from.”
Executing and practicing combat airlift in the Indo-Pacific allows the 62d AW to develop the capabilities necessary to deter and defeat our pacing and acute challenges across the spectrum of conflict. To truly present ready, combat-credible, rapid global mobility forces, the 62d AW is staying relevant by leveraging opportunities like OKSB to strengthen warfighting skills, and become a stronger fleet going forward.
“One of the biggest challenges that we have operating in the Indo-Pacific theater is the tyranny of distance,” said Elliott. “It takes a lot more fuel, a lot more support, a lot more equipment. In order to operate effectively, we need to determine how to get more agile, how to be leaner, and how to explode into theater faster. Making sure that we’re good partners is absolutely key, so if we have to do this for real, we’re prepared. We have those relationships, and we’re going to continue to execute as we look at the challenges of the Indo-Pacific. That’s how we ensure that we are ready today and prepared for tomorrow.”
| Date Taken: | 12.16.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.18.2025 11:22 |
| Story ID: | 554703 |
| Location: | AU |
| Web Views: | 65 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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