EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Edwards AFB hosted the Air Force Weapons School capstone recently. Dozens of combat aircraft assigned to the Weapons School participated in the extensive training event. The Weapons School trains tactical experts and leaders to control and exploit air, space and cyber on behalf of the joint force.
"We executed our capstone event for defensive counter air for Weapons School integration," Tech. Sgt. Robert Medeiros, Manager of ACE & MAF Planning, USAF Weapons School said. "This involved over 60 aircraft. We are teaching our students defensive counter air, tactics, techniques and procedures to prepare them for great power competition and future fight."
Aircrew, maintenance and logistics personnel came to Edwards from Nellis AFB as part of the Weapons School Capstone. F-22s, F-35s, F-15Es and F-16s were all a part of this advanced training event.
"The capstone also involves advances academics that teach the students advanced combat oriented flying and advanced academics on how to employ their aircraft in a degraded and contested environment and how they are going to overcome those problems," Medeiros said.
The goal of the capstone is for students of the Weapons School to be trained into premier tactical leaders who can dynamically problem solve and integrate the required resources to achieve victory.
Night time flying also provides the ultimate challenge to achieve this goal.
"We fly at night because conditions are perfect for our advanced techniques and procedures development," Medeiros said. "The conditions are perfect for giving our students those advanced opportunities to face harder problems."
Edwards continues to be the first choice to train and engage in aerospace excellence.
"Edwards also provides us with excellent support system logistics which is what we need to win in these future fights," Medeiros added. "In these future power competitions, it's going to take all of us to win a future war. It's not going to be just an individual warfighter, but a team as a whole."