Notwithstanding the sharp Left objections on the expanding strategic relationship with the USA, the Indian Air Force has sought the Cabinet’s approval for participating in the US Air Force’s Red Flag Nellis exercise, which was accessible only to NATO members and close US allies like Israel so far.

“We have bid for one of the world’s most sought after air exercise – Red Flag Nellis, 2008. We are waiting for the government’s clearance,” IAF Air Chief Marshal  Homi Major told reporters here on Friday.

What has given almost a cult status to this exercise is the survival skills it imparts among the rookie pilots by focusing more on the learning curves of the “new pilots” and carrying out the exercise in a “realistic environment.”

Conceptualised in the wake of the Vietnam War, it provides the pilots an opportunity to fly 10 realistically-simulated combat missions with measurable results. The exercise is carried out at the Nellis air base and is coordinated by the 414th combat training squadron of the 57th wing of the USAF.

The Red Flag exercise was designed in such a manner because of an USAF analysis that showed a pilot’s chances of survival in combat dramatically increased after he had completed 10 combat missions.

Because of the wide range it offers to rookie pilots, the USA has so far kept the Nellis exercise a closely guarded one.

When IAF first approached the USAF, seeking participating in the Red Flag exercise, the US officials merely changed the name of Operation Cope Thunder to Red Flag Alaska and invited the IAF to participate. “That’s why, this time we are stressing that it is Red Flag Nellis,” said an IAF officer. The new found confidence between New Delhi and Washington seems to have opened the doors for the IAF. The cooperation has led to intense Left protests during a bilateral air exercise in Kalaikunda two years ago.

The armed forces have faced the comrades’ wrath twice in the recent months during the docking of US nuclear powered submarine Nimitz in Chennai and five-nation Malabar series of naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal.
If the green signal comes, it will give the IAF a second time exposure to NATO standard operating procedures. The first brush came during the five-nation exercise in which a squadron of deep strike Jaguar fighters, based in Car Nicobar, participated. “There is nothing wrong in learning how the NATO countries operate,” said  Marshal Major.