AVON PARK AIR FORCE RANGE — Get ready for the pyrotechnics and the loud booms. The Avon Park Air Force Range will host its semiannual training operation next week. Atlantic Strike VII, a large-scale training exercise where bombers and joint ground forces from all over the South simulate urban warfare missions, will train numerous military personnel for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. The training missions require forces to participate in what amounts to a war game with role-playing guerilla fighters, insurgents, sniper fire, roadside explosives and many of the conditions faced by their counterparts supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. ...more

June 11, 2008

AVON PARK — Construction for the targeting systems to be used for the Avon Park Air Force Range's live bombing operations has been pushed back somewhat, but the operations are still slated to begin February 2009, a Navy spokesman said. U.S. Fleet Forces Command spokesman Jim Brantley from Norfolk, Va. said that infrastructure should be built sometime during the summer, though he couldn't be more specific. In January, he anticipated that these installations would have been completed either in April or this month. Negotiations on the contracts for this work took longer than originally planned. ...more

May 27, 2008