Largest USAF Elephant Walk Ever Had 4,000 People and 80 Aircraft on the Same Texas Runway

Back in WWII, it was common for many airplanes to share the same runway before setting off into combat. As the story goes, to an unknown someone such a view resembled that of a herd of elephants walking together to find water, so they said that out loud. The term stuck and is still being used today, especially by the U.S. Air Force (USAF).

The American military branch is used to taking out on the runway large groups of aircraft, as such a move both trains pilots and other personnel to work together should the need for rapid, massive deployment arise, and it sends the proper message of power and superiority to the country's enemies.

Sadly, the USAF is not in the habit of keeping exact track of such events, so it's challenging to know what the largest elephant walk was all about. But at four thousand people and eighty aircraft, the mammoth parade at the Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas last week has all the chances of being the largest ever in USAF history.

Designed to “shine a light on the importance of training and partnerships,” the display of American personnel and hardware on the same runway, at the same time, can only be genuinely judged to its proper dimensions if you go through the attached gallery.

Sheppard AFB dates back to 1941, and it is presently where the vast majority of America's pilots, about 48 percent, are trained. It's the branch's largest Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) Academy, the home base for three of eight USAF technical training groups, and where the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program unfolds.

A place perfectly equipped, thus, for the vast undertaking its personnel attempted last week. Although at least to our knowledge the achievement was not officially recognized by some world record organization, just the sight of so many humans and machines together is more than enough to take your breath away.

You're looking at people from the 82nd Training Wing (again, 4,000 of them) sitting front and center on the Texas runway, with a wealth of trainer aircraft deployed with the 80th Flying Training Wing sitting behind them. The planes are pretty tricky to spot behind the sea of humans, but we can tell you we're dealing with machines like the T-38 Talon and 40 T-6A Texan II, both spread out in equal numbers, 40 each, on the runway and into the distance.

Knowing how the USAF generally does things we should expect an even larger gathering to be attempted in the future, so don't be surprised if we'll hear about even higher numbers than the ones mentioned above.