On Dec. 14, 2012, Kunsan airbase, Republic of Korea, hosted the latest of a series of Elephant Walk exercise involving F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 35th and 80th Fighter Squadrons of the 8th Fighter Wing; the 4th Fighter Squadron of the 388th Expeditionary Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and the 38th Fighter Group of the ROK Air Force.
During Elephant Walk exercises military aircraft (usually fully armed) taxi in close formation or in sequence right before a minimum interval takeoff and, depending on the purpose of the training event they then either take off or taxi back to the apron.
In April 2012, nearly 70 F-15E Strike Eagles took part to one of the largest Elephant Walk to date at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.
Last year’s exercise at Kunsan involved about 60 U.S. F-16s and South Korea’s ROKAF KF-16s taxiing down the runway of the South Korean airbase in a collective “show of force” whose primary aim is to test squadron’s readiness to war time operations (and secondary one is probably to impress Pyongyang….).
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Since the number of aircraft that took part to the latest Elephant Walk at Kunsan has not been disclosed the question is: how many F-16s can you spot in these photos?
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
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