Nellis Air Force Base to Bring the Noise to Southern Utah in the Coming Weeks

Imagine this, you’re doom scrolling on social media, and you keep reading posts from your friends and family that say, “What’s that booming noise outside?” 

Sounds pretty familiar right? It’s nice to know about unknown events before they happen so you can rub it into the face of your loved ones with an all-knowing index finger pointing skyward. 

Allow me to inform you of such an event. Nellis Air Force Base will be running a Red Flag exercise from July 22 to Aug. 1. 

This means Southern Utah residents can expect to hear plenty of booming noises coming from the west as pilots practice vital maneuvers with live ammunition. 

The Nellis Airforce Base website describes the exercise as multiple intensive combat scenarios in a controlled environment. 

The website states, “The 414th Combat Training Squadron conducts Red Flag exercises to provide aircrews the experience of multiple, intensive air combat sorties in the safety of a training environment. There are three iterations of Red Flag annually, one U.S. only, one open to FVEY (Five Eyes) participants and one that welcomes an expanded roster of international allies and partners. The training occurs at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada on the Nevada Test and Training Range, the U.S. Air Force’s premier military training area with more than 12,000 square miles of airspace and 2.9 million acres of land.” 

So now you know, and once your grandma hops on to the old book of faces, as she calls it, you’ll be able to comfort her with unbound knowledge while everyone else thinks the world is ending for the hundredth time this year. Good luck.