Mobility Guardian is not Air Rodeo 2.0, according to Air Force officials.  Rodeo, which was hosted at McChord for nearly two decades, was a competition - Mobility Guardian is an exercise.  This Q&A from Air Mobility Command provides the explanations.

How will Mobility Guardian be different from AMC's Rodeo in previous years?

Mobility Guardian is a time for discovery and learning. It is a completely new exercise meant to enhance mobility partnerships and test the full spectrum of capabilities Air Mobility Command provides the nation. AMC Rodeo was primarily a friendly competition between various joint and coalition partners, while Mobility Guardian will put mobility airmen, and their partners, to the test in real-world scenarios that aircrews face in today's contingency operations as well as those they expect to see in the future. This forum will allow participants to share tactics, techniques and procedures essential to maintaining readiness and sustainment in coalition campaigns around the world.

What inspired the change?

Exercise Mobility Guardian is crucial, because no matter how the world acts, one constant remains - the need to reach any point on the globe quickly and with ready military forces. In the face of high operations tempos and limited resources, AMC owes it to their airmen and the American people to maximize efficiency and produce ready forces always. AMC Rodeo's evolution to Exercise Mobility Guardian is a crucial opportunity to maintain readiness and improve interoperability with joint and coalition partners. To be prepared for tomorrow's challenges, airmen must train like they fight. Exercise Mobility Guardian gives them the chance to do just that, working with their mobility partners to tackle highly complex scenarios which will increase their ability to employ forces in the tough situations they find themselves in around the world.

What are the similarities between Mobility Guardian and past Rodeos?

Exercise Mobility Guardian grew out of a need to sharpen the skills of mobility crews to meet current and future demands of combatant commanders. Air Mobility Rodeo focused on specialized crews in competition, whereas Mobility Guardian is driven by readiness, which is what is required in today's volatile environment.

What are the training goals for the exercise? What types of scenarios will participants see?

Exercises like these offer an opportunity to learn and evolve as a force. With mission readiness as the ultimate training objective, the exercise is being designed to sharpen airmen's skills in support of combatant commander requirements. The exercise training scenario will feature joint forcible entry and airfield seizure, a joint mission between Air Force airdrop crews and Army Airborne units which will take place at locations across Washington state. It will also incorporate contingency response and humanitarian relief operations to include aeromedical evacuation efforts.