Cope North 2022
Cope North 2022 is a tri-lateral exercise under the command of Pacific Air Force (PACAF) which is considered US Pacific Air Forces’ largest multi-lateral exercise. Established in 1978 as a quarterly bilateral exercise held at Misawa Air Base (Japan), Cope North moved to Andersen AFB (Guam) in 1999.
This year the exercise was held from 2 to 18 February 2022. The air operations were conducted from Andersen AFB and Northwest Field on Guam; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, including Rota, Saipan, and Tinian; Palau; and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The goal of the exercise was interoperability between the participating units and to support the Indo-Pacific region during a natural disaster. But more important was that the units have been training on various Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concepts.
ACE is PACAF's model to project combat air power via a network of distributed operating locations throughout the Indo-Pacific. Over 2,000 sorties were planned across seven islands and ten airfields. The units trained on both defensive and offensive scenarios as Guam air base is an advanced base in the front of US Armed Forces in the Pacific.
Total number of participating aircraft have been reported as 130. These came from the following units:
Photos via PACAF