JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- Welcome signs for Air Mobility Rodeo 2011 are all around Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Air Mobility Rodeo is the U.S. Air Force's and Air Mobility Command's premier international combat skills and flying operations competition designed to develop and improve techniques, procedures, and interoperability, while optimizing international mobility partnerships and enhancing mobility operations.
Air Mobility Rodeo 2011, sponsored by the Air Mobility Command, is the Mobility Air Force's readiness competition. This competition focuses on improving our worldwide air mobility forces' professional core abilities. Air Mobility 2011 will be held at McChord Field, Wash., July 24-29, 2011.
More than 150 teams and 3,000 people from the Air Force, and Air Force Reserve, as well as allied nations, are expected to participate.
The last biennial competition took place in July 2009 -- also at McChord.
In October 1956, 13 troop carrier wings of the Continental Air Command, the Air Force Reserve Command's predecessor, sent crews to participate in a "Reserve Troop Carrier Rodeo" at Bakalar Air Force Base, Ind. The first airdrop competition for units of the active-duty force occurred in April 1962, when the Military Air Transport Service held a MATS-wide Rodeo at Scott AFB, Illinois.
The 1962 competition was a combat skills competition designed to develop and improve techniques/procedures while enhancing air mobility operations, and promoting esprit de corps. In 1979, Rodeo was expanded to include our international air mobility partners. Rodeo tests the flight and ground skills of aircrews as well as the related skills of special tactics, security forces, aerial port operations, aeromedical evacuation, and maintenance team members. It also provides valuable joint and combined training for all participants.