Squadron wins DOD maintenance award

  • Published
  • By Ed Drohan
  • 43rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. (AFPN) --  The 74th Fighter Squadron here has been named winner of the 2003 Secretary of Defense Maintenance Award in the small category.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II unit was the only Air Force winner out of six units in the small, medium and large categories.

The selection panel looked at mission accomplishments, effective use of maintenance resources, innovative management accomplishments and quality-of-life programs when determining the award winners, Chief Master Sgt. Robert Blackburn said. He was the maintenance superintendent and chief enlisted manager during the award time frame.

The squadron was recognized for becoming the first Air Force unit to forward-deploy twice from a contingency base, Blackburn said. First it moved from a deployed location in Southwest Asia to a classified location supporting Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. The second deployment was to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, where its pilots were the first to fly missions from the country.

While operating out of austere camps, the pilots were able to fly 100 percent of their air-tasking orders with near-perfect maintenance effectiveness, Blackburn said. At Bagram, squadron airmen worked to clear unexploded ordnance, set up a tent city and get maintenance and flying operations working to support 300 people and six aircraft.

Col. Vincent DiFronzo, the 23rd Fighter Group commander, was the air operations officer during Operation Enduring Freedom at the time. He had a front-seat view of the squadron’s action during Operation Anaconda and its subsequent move to Afghanistan.

“It was the first time they decided to put A-10s into Afghanistan after the first night of Anaconda,” DiFronzo said. “We called, and the aircraft were airborne within 14 hours and into the fight. That was unprecedented.

“The maintenance (troops were) so impressive because they jumped right into recovering the aircraft,” DiFronzo said. “It was a four-hour trip in an A-10 to get into the battle area, and then they had to recover into a classified area with no notice. They were there for a week, went back to (their original Southwest Asia location) and deployed to Bagram a few days later, and the whole time they met every A-10 tasking.”

Even while the squadron was not deployed, it supported exercises such as Air Warrior II at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; Red Flag at Nellis AFB, Nev.; and a joint combat search and rescue exercise at Patrick AFB, Fla.

Despite the extraordinarily high operations tempo, unit maintainers improved five key maintenance indicators. Two increased the mission-capable rate and lowered the mission-abort rate for the A-10s. All of the aircraft are more than 20 years old, the chief said.

Squadron airmen began a spouses’ organization, a program which has now spread to other units on base, and started an adopt-an-airman program.

“I am extremely proud of them,” DiFronzo said. “They are a great example of what happens when you have a can-do attitude and step up to meet the challenge when it’s needed.”

The squadron is now in the running for the Phoenix Award as the top maintenance unit in the Department of Defense. That award will be announced at the Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards Ceremony and Banquet on Oct. 29 at King of Prussia, Pa.