Nellis unveils its war room

Jace Radke

Tuesday, March 23, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

Already the home of the highest levels of training for Air Force pilots, Nellis Air Force Base now has a high-technology center for commanders to hone their decision-making abilities while directing aircraft and airmen during war.

The 40,000-square-foot Combined Air and Space Operations Center officially opened its doors Monday, and training will begin inside the building next week.

Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, said there are very few places in the world that can rival the technology at work in the $8.9 million building that houses three separate operation bays filled with 12-foot-tall wall screens and a total of 500 flat-screen computer monitors.

"You'd have to go to Cheyenne Mountain (Operations Center, in Colorado) to rival this," Jumper said from inside the largest of the command centers at Nellis as footage taken by remote-piloted Predator aircraft was broadcast on the wall behind him.

"This is very similar to the operations center where we ran the war in Iraq.

"We've paid a lot of attention to training our pilots, but the piece we haven't paid enough attention to are the people in command and control."

While the center -- which includes $7 million in equipment -- has a training mission as a priority, it can also be used in a war, Jumper said.

Operations in the Middle East could be controlled from the center, as could missions involving Predators and other remote-piloted aircraft. The center allows a commander to evaluate situations and make tactical decisions, Air Force officials said.

"We are networking places like this so that all the air operations centers can fall in and share the load," Jumper said. "From time to time it (the center at Nellis) will be involved in real-world issues."

There are about a half-dozen operations centers around the world similar to the one at Nellis, including locations in the Pacific, Persian Gulf and Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Air Force officials said.

The two larger bays at Nellis, which look like a Las Vegas sports book with all of the video screens on the walls, will be used mainly for training exercises in connection with Red Flag and other war games. The smaller third bay is a classified area that can be used to run actual missions.

All three bays can become classified for mission use if needed, said Col. Rob Vanderberry, commander of the 505th Operations Squadron, which runs the center.

"We'll have joint-use capabilities where we can bring foreign officers into the declassified bays for training," Vanderberry said.

The center will also be used to train Air Force personnel and members of other military branches to develop tactics and work together, Jumper said.

Nellis' quarterly Red Flag exercises usually bring more than 100 aircraft and 2,000 people to the base for advanced combat training over the 2.9 million-acre Nevada Test and Training Range. While the pilots are flying mock combat missions, commanders in the operations center can monitor the action and make decisions on the fly, said Gen. Hal Hornburg, head of Air Combat Command.

"This building allows commanders to see the air war rolling out in front of them," Hornburg said. "As targets emerge they can take advantage and send the needed resources to deal with the targets."

Hornburg said the new operations center further pushes Nellis to the forefront for Air Force training.

"It will be another example of how the training at Nellis has saved lives and will continue to save lives in Iraq and around the world," Hornburg said.