For the first time in its history, an aircraft touched down at Ramstein Air Base without ever using the runway. On Aug. 18, a 37th Airlift Squadron aircrew of the United States Air Force landed a C-130J on a taxiway during a wing exercise, marking the first time an airplane has landed at Ramstein without using a runway.
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U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joseph Curzi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The landing was part of an exercise called Knight LZ, and it gave aircrew and support personnel a chance to validate alternate landing options in case a runway was ever unavailable. Capt. Christopher Galemore, the squadron’s chief of tactics, and Maj. Riley Miller, the unit’s chief pilot, flew the mission.
Col. Matthew Wunderlich, commander of the 86th Operations Group, said the exercise was about more than just proving a plane could land somewhere unusual. It showed the wing’s ability to keep flying when conditions change, he said, calling that kind of adaptability essential to readiness and to keeping strategic options open for the mission.
Pulling it off took more than one squadron. The 86th Security Forces Squadron, the 86th Operations Support Squadron, the 37th Airlift Squadron and the 721st Aerial Port Squadron all had a role, from securing the area to loading cargo to managing communications on the ground. Capt. Ty Millsap, chief of wing tactics for the 86th Operations Support Squadron, said exercises like this build the experience and confidence crews need to operate in a contingency environment, and that the coordination it takes across the base is exactly what prepares people for the unexpected.
The Ramstein landing is the latest example of a training approach the Air Force has been leaning into for several years, generally known as Agile Combat Employment. The idea is straightforward: if a traditional runway is damaged, blocked or too dangerous to use, aircrews need other ways to get airplanes on the ground and keep the mission going.
Air Force Special Operations Command put that same idea to the test two years earlier, in a very different setting. On Aug. 4, 2024, an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship landed on Highway 63 near Bono, Arkansas, as part of Emerald Warrior Field Training Exercise II. It was AFSOC’s own historic first, and organizers built the exercise specifically to show off the command’s Agile Combat Employment capabilities.
That day started with Special Tactics Airmen from the 1st Special Operations Wing securing a stretch of the five-lane highway as a landing zone. A C-146A Wolfhound and an MC-130J Commando II, both from the 492nd Special Operations Wing, landed on the highway shortly after. The MC-130J crew then set up a Forward Arming and Refueling Point, and the AC-130J made its approach, landed, refueled, rearmed and took off again, all on the same stretch of road.
Tech. Sgt. Robert Gallagher, the lead planner for the highway landings at AFSOC’s Air Commando Development Center, said the exercise was a significant milestone that showed the command’s ability to operate in diverse and austere environments, and that leaning on Agile Combat Employment concepts gives crews more operational flexibility and resilience. Col. Patrick Dierig, commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing, put it in blunter terms, saying the exercise sent a message to adversaries that the Air Force can meet them anywhere, without needing a traditional runway to project airpower.
Though the two exercises involved different aircraft, different commands and different terrain, they point to the same underlying shift in how the Air Force thinks about basing. A conventional airlift squadron practicing on a base taxiway in Germany and a special operations gunship refueling on an Arkansas highway are both working through the same problem: what happens if the runway isn’t there when you need it.
That question has taken on more weight as the Air Force plans for potential conflicts against adversaries capable of striking fixed airfields. Dispersing aircraft to smaller, less predictable locations, sometimes called runway-agnostic operations, is meant to make it harder for an enemy to knock out American airpower in one strike.
Neither exercise suggests taxiways or highways will replace runways anytime soon. But both are aimed at giving aircrews and support teams practice they may need if the option to use a normal airfield ever disappears.
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