Elephant Walk is an air force training exercise which is conducted by nearly all the air forces across the globe regularly. This exercise is conducted to check if they air force squadrons are able to launch large formations of aircraft on a short notice or not.
In this drill, the combat aircraft which also include the tankers taxi close to each other in a formation close to each other. Whether the aircraft take off or return back to their parking slots, is dependent upon the purpose of the training exercise.
Recently these “Elephant Walks” have been frequently carried out in South Korea with local based US Air Force Jets along with Republic of Korea Air Force’s planes. These recent walks are to present a collective show of force to North Korea in response to their threats and aggressive postures over the years.
The latest US-based “Elephant Walk” has been carried out on October 26t, 2018 at the Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas in which T-6 Texan II single-engine, two-seat turboprop primary trainer aircraft from the 559th Flying Training Squadron and the 39th FTS participated.
Normally these walks are a show of force but these squadrons were actually for getting in touch with the heritage of the Squadron. These aircraft were manufactured and have performed in the World War II. The exercise was named as the “Goat Trot/Snake Slither”. The name was given because the 559th is the fighting Billy Goats whereas the 39th is the Cobras.
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