Like the rest of us, the Air Force’s tradition of “elephant walks” is apparently not immune to inflation, because last weekend’s display at Kadena Air Base in Japan is the largest we’ve ever seen.
More than four dozen aircraft, plus a battery of anti-aircraft missiles, put on a “walk” last weekend.
The Air Force aircraft included: 24 F-35As; eight F-15E Strike Eagles; six HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopters; two MQ-9 Reaper drones; two MC-130J Commando II special ops tankers; six KC-135 tankers; an RC-135 Rivet Joint, a spy plane that eavesdrop on radio and other communications; and an E-3G Sentry, or AWACS platform.
The Navy chipped in two EA-18G Growler electronic warfare fighter-bombers and one P-8 Poseidon submarine-hunter. The Army flanked the formation with two Patriot missile launchers.
That’s 53 planes, which beats by one the 52-aircraft elephant walk at Hill Air Force Base in Utah that we wrote about in 2020.
But more remarkable than the total number is the variety of airframes on display, which range from in-the-dirt rescue helicopters to secrecy-shrouded heavy jets that serve as spy planes, command posts and submarine hunters.
Most of the planes in the elephant walk are flown by crews at Kadena, including the HH-60s, KC-135s, and E-3s (Kadena has F-15 squadrons, but the strike fighters in the formation were from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, according to an Air Force release). The other aircraft, the Air Force said, “regularly operate out of Kadena, day in and day out.”
“An elephant walk like this sends a message you can’t ignore—it shows our Airmen, allies, and adversaries that we’re united, capable, and ready,” said 18th Wing command chief master sergeant Brandon Wolfgang in a release. “This kind of teamwork and presence is exactly how we maintain deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.”
The RC-135 Rivet Joint and P-8 are electronic reconnaissance aircraft, stuffed with listening devices for radios, cell phones and other electromagnetic spying (the P-8 also has a direct anti-submarine mission). Rivet Joints are based at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and have been spotted in recent months trolling the coast of Mexico in what are reported to be missions spying on drug cartel operations.
The array of tankers required for that many fuel-thirsty jets is interesting. The KC-135s in back can refuel most of the Air Force’s planes with their fuel boom, but the MC-130Js are designed to refuel helicopters like the HH-60s via a drogue system. The Navy Growlers also use the drogue system.
The flyers at Kadena, it seems, need little prompting to put on a show. The base held a similar, 33-aircraft elephant walk a year ago.
