It was an eerie sight at this normally bustling F-16 base. The flight line was completely away from aircraft. Tools were neatly tucked away, hangars were silent and operations had completely come to a halt.
For the 388th Fighter Wing, it meant the beginning of sequestration, with one fighter squadron forced to minimize flying hours and another squadron completely shut down.
For greater than three months, the 421st Fighter Squadron was reduced to “basic mission capable” flying hours, and the 4th FS stood down completely, causing a ripple effect for commanders, maintainers and pilots alike, and challenging them to seek out innovative easy methods to stay sharp and maximize opportunities.
Col. Lance Landrum is the commander of the 388th Fighter Wing and said that, through all of it, the wing was still charged with the launch and recovery of aircraft, though the frequency was drastically reduced.
“Unfortunately, our Airmen lost a number of training and experience that they’re going to never come again in the course of the stand down and reduced flying due to sequester,” Landrum said. “In addition to almost 30 lost flights per pilot, the Air Force canceled a complete RED FLAG exercise that we were scheduled to wait. However, they were true professionals on this and so they found tips on how to adapt.”
“Everybody knew we were going to have some hard times previous to us,” said Senior Airman Armando Ramirez, a dedicated crew chief with the 421st Aircraft Maintenance Unit. “Not one individual person was going to take the brunt of it … it was going to be our whole AMU.”
The commander of the 388th Maintenance Group, Col. Dane P. West, said he worked closely with 388th Operations Group commander, Col. Thomas G. Klopotek, to bring leadership from the affected squadrons together to plot for the challenges just before both the upkeep and operational sides of the home.
“The maintainers’ first priority was to make certain the aircraft were mission ready — combat ready,” West said. “The second priority was to coach as a few of the Airmen that weren’t qualified at the F-16 Fighting Falcon to combat ready status.”
Civilian furloughs created a challenge, amounting to a 38 percent loss in maintainers who were certified at the F-16 airframe, and a 20 percent loss in total force over the upkeep units.
West said leadership inside the units came up with an answer that could both certify maintainers at the F-16, while simultaneously bolstering production of the squadron whose jets were still flying.
To start, West said the sister squadrons would rotate 30 maintenance Airmen every two weeks, essentially cashing in on opportunities on all sides of the sequester.
He said the maintainers on the stood-down 4th FS would specialize in meeting training requirements to qualify new Airmen at the F-16, and conduct full inspections in their grounded aircraft. Those on the still-flying 421st FS would consider launch and recovery of aircraft, produce their allotted sorties and satisfy that training requirement for its maintainers.
“We had only a few dropped sorties,” West said. “That sort of stability is actually huge.”
Relative to the implemented training program, greater than nine percent, roughly 40 Airmen, from the upkeep squadron received their qualification at the F-16 airframe, which grew the force, West said.
The operations group faced an overly different challenge.
“For my pilots … none of them actually took off and landed from front seat of an F-16 at some point of the stand down,” said Lt. Col. Todd Robbins, the 4th FS commander.
The skills Air Force pilots employ within the air are very perishable, Robbins said. Pilots need frequent contact with their airframe and relentless repetition. He said simulators were used up to possible, but without exposing the pilots to actual flying conditions comparable to G-force, there has been a qualitative degradation.
“We did what shall we with simulators and educational training,” said Capt. Derek Kirkwood, a pilot with the 4th FS. “Ultimately there’s no replacement for actually flying.”
With the 4th FS standing down and the 421st FS flying reduced hours, Kirkwood said the wing would were hard pressed to reply to a tremendous conflict or quick response situation.
“Everybody here has spent most in their adult life attending to this point,” he said. “This is what we wish to do and we believe very strongly within the mission … having that taken clear of you … there’s no solution to be ok with it.”
Though frustrated, the squadrons did everything they are able to to make simulator time as challenging as possible for the pilots and increased their academic study time significantly. They did their best to create a plan that will have them back to combat-ready status as quickly as possible.
“We have most of the greatest Airmen inside the Air Force working here on this squadron,” Kirkwood said. “They were ready to keep the morale up and keep fighting in the course of the sequestration with the idea that someday we are able to start flying again. We would have liked to be as ready as possible when that day came.”
That day came July 15, and Airmen from maintenance and operations squadrons alike applied their respective plans to come back to combat-ready status. It was assumed after a 90-day stand down that it will take no less than as many days to come again to combat ready.
For the 4th FS, Robbins said the method took only about four weeks because of the incredible sortie count produced by the maintainers, and for the 421st, about three weeks were had to report as combat ready.
The Airmen of the 388 FW are back up and flying just before schedule by reason of collaborative effort between those Airmen engaged on the flightline and people within the air.
“I was keen on what sort of morale will be inside the squadron,” Robbins said, regarding his taking command mid-stand down. “The Airmen amazed and impressed me with their dedication, their attitude and their ability to profit from this stand-down time … to deal with sequestration with poise, professionalism and style. In my mind, there’s nothing these Airmen can’t do.”
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