Nellis hosts joint DoD experiment

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Ross Tweten
  • Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE Nev. (ACCNS) --  Spiral 2 of the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment ‘06 kicked off here Monday.

JEFX is an Air Force chief of staff-sponsored, major command-executed series of experiments that combine live fly, live play ground and naval forces, simulation and technology insertions into a war fighting environment.

The experiment is a venue for groundbreaking command and control technology and processes that can be fielded and provided to the war fighter.

This year’s experiment involves forces from bases across the United States, England, Australia and Canada.

“JEFX incorporates three spiral events and a main experiment event,” said Scott Sampson, execution director. “Spiral 1 is essentially a technology demonstration of the Air Force chief of staff-directed command and control tools or ‘initiatives’ where key war fighters provide initial feedback that developers use to modify or ‘spiral’ the initiative prior to Spiral 2.”

“In Spiral 2 we are building the experiment,” said Col. Chuck Parks, director of the Air Force Experiment Office. “Spiral 3 is considered the pre-game warm-up for the main experiment and the main experiment is where we bring it all together functioning under an operationally realistic environment and scenario.”

The CAOC is the experiment’s environment. It combines operators and systems from all different air assets and coalition forces to make one integrated system.

The goals of this experiment are to better integrate CAOC processes, expand the use of data links, and extend networks to link the operational and tactical levels of execution.


The specific objectives of Spiral 2 are as follows: 

- Train war fighter participants on how to operate the new initiatives and systems that they’ve never used before or have used very little. 

- Wring out the communications architecture for the CAOC, extended CAOC locations and other service component sites as well as the computer modeling and simulation architecture. 

- Wring out the computer modeling and simulation architecture for the synthetic battlespace. 

- Integrate all available CAOC systems and build cohesive system architecture. 
- Conduct process workout of key CAOC processes. 

- Develop and refine tactics, techniques, and procedures for tools, initiatives and processes. 

- Conduct Crisis Action Planning and produce deliverables required for Spiral 3. 

- Collect war fighter assessment feedback to support “spiraling” systems, initiatives and processes for Spiral 3 experimentation. 

- And finally, reduce the potential risk involved in the final experiment event or “MainEx”. 

Participants include the Air Force, Navy and Army for Spiral 2 with the Marines expected in Spiral 3 and Main Ex. The Department of Homeland Security and NORTHCOM are also participating. Coalition participants include Great Britain, Canada and Australia. There are 35 allied participants occupying operator positions throughout the CAOC.

According to Royal Air Force Group Capt. Paddy Teakle, deputy air operations center director, it’s important that the United States’ allies understand the developments going on here.

“In the end, if we go to war we are fighting the same war,” he said. “We want to work on our ability to work shoulder to shoulder with our allies so everybody involved in the process is treated the same. Working on our ability to share the planning processes so there is a transparent understanding of where we are in the joint coalition fight is part of what the spiral environment is about.”

“We fight with the coalition,” said Colonel Parks. “They’re part of the defense of this nation. In today’s warfighting environment, going single-ship is null and void.”

Spiral 2 is scheduled to end Jan. 20 with Spiral 3 coming in March and the main experiment following in April.