U.S. air contingent completes bilateral mission at Clark Air Base

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 26): U.S. air contingent completes bilateral mission at Clark Air Base

Over the last two weeks, U.S. and Philippine service members trained side by side in a series of Subject Matter Expert Exchanges as part of the most recent U.S. Air Contingent, at the invitation of the Government of the Philippines and at the direction of U.S. Pacific Command.

The training provided the Philippine and U.S. service members an opportunity to practice and refine planning Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief operations.

The Air Contingent aims to promote increased interoperability between U.S. and Filipino forces and to further enhance security cooperation and disaster response capabilities between the allies.

During this Air Contingent rotation, the Hawaii Air National Guard’s 154th Wing and soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 5th Engineer Detachment Geospatial Planning Cell and 500th Military trained alongside Philippine airmen to employ the Eagle Vision satellite system for disaster relief operations.

Military planners use the Eagle Vision system to acquire satellite imagery to aid the planning of military operations to include disaster response.

The first rotation of the Air Contingent stood up at Clark Air Base, Philippines, in April 2016, following a joint announcement by then-Philippine Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Gazmin and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=958356