Unit puts the 'deploy' in 'deployment order'

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Anna Siegel
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) --  Television images of jets launching and bombs dropping during Operation Iraqi Freedom showed airmen doing what they are trained to do. What most viewers did not see were the people responsible for getting the jets there to put bombs on targets and patrol the sky.

The Air Combat Command Air Operations Squadron’s aircraft delivery operations function here is the Department of Defense's executive agent for worldwide aircraft delivery, coordinating movement of fighter and bomber aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, Marines and allied forces.

"Think of us as travel agents for the military," said Lt. Col. Dan Drejza, the director of operations for the squadron. "When a deployment order gets published, we see to it that the aircraft, the 'iron,' get to their in-theater operating locations."

"We do the flight planning, request diplomatic clearances, coordinate with stop-over bases as well as airspace altitude reservations for refueling operations," said Col. Dan Shelor, AOS commander. "We also coordinate with Air Mobility Command's Tanker Airlift Control Center for the tankers."

The squadron also runs the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, the Air Operations Weather Flight and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Tracking and Reporting System Element. It was primarily the aircraft delivery operations function, however, that helped the squadron recently earn an Air Force Organizational Excellence Award.

Besides the flights here, the squadron has two detachments overseas: one at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, and the other at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

The Langley-based flights and detachments planned, coordinated and directed deployments for aircraft with the full spectrum of mission capabilities for OIF. In three months, this totaled more than 360 combat aircraft, more than 2,500 sortie generations and more than 5,000 individual air-refueling operations.

The experience of the squadron team, comprised of airmen, civil service workers and contractors, and the computer software they use, are vital to the success of the mission, said Shelor.

Nine civilian contractors, all retired airmen, work in the aircraft delivery operations section. Most of them worked for the squadron before retiring, he said.

"We develop the profile for the mission," said Doug Martin, one of the civil-service planners. "We basically give the pilots a map and a flight plan that tells them which direction to go and when to get some gas. If they don't get gas from the tanker, we give them a piece of concrete to land on."

"We use the most sophisticated flight-planning software anywhere," Shelor said. "It's one of a kind. It actually computes fuel requirements on a second-by-second basis on up to six airplanes flying off of a single tanker. It tells the pilot when to cycle each individual airplane onto the boom to get some gas, and how much gas to take in order to always have enough fuel to divert to a designated recovery base, if they have a problem. To try to do that manually would be unbelievably difficult.

"Once the mission has been planned and tasked, it gets turned over to a delivery-control officer for final planning and the detailed coordination and pre-launch preparations," he said. "They go to the departure base, brief the pilots and actually direct the launch of the aircraft."

There are 12 delivery control officers here and six each at Ramstein and Hickam, who take the plan to the warfighter for on-site coordination, Drejza said.

A team of airfield-management craftsmen with flight-operations planning and airspace-use experience support each of the three locations. They also manage the libraries of flight-information publications that provide critical in-flight and base-support information.

A control officer goes to the deploying wing and briefs the squadron, wing leaders and all the crews, Shelor said. They coordinate with the tankers, the operational weather squadrons and other agencies, such as the local base operations and the Federal Aviation Administration.

"There are very specific airspace requirements that have to be met when there are large numbers of aircraft flying in formation, particularly when there's air refueling involved," he said. "We have to make what's called ‘altitude reservations’ to do that, wherever that happens to be in the world, and that makes it a fairly complex issue to deal with."

The aircraft delivery operations section also coordinated the first deployment of B-2 Spirit bombers to a forward-deployed location and custom built support packages for B-1 Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress bombers, according to Shelor.

"Historically, bombers didn't deploy. They flew from home, and they came back and landed at home," he said. "They have the capability to do that still. Of course, in some cases, it makes more sense to get them closer to the fight, which is what they did this time."

The section’s support does not stop with Air Force fighters or even bombers, Shelor said.

"The Navy and Marines don't have the capability to do this type of mission planning. That's why we help them, too," Drejza said. "Ship-assigned assets may use our service to get to where they can embark onto the ship. We were even recently asked to move planes from one carrier to another, one in the Indian Ocean and the other in the Persian Gulf."

Besides deploying the planes for contingency operations like operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, the aircraft delivery operations section is responsible for moving aircraft for steady-state operations, like the former operations Northern and Southern Watch, scheduled maintenance, exercises, air shows and training. They also deliver the aircraft sold or deployed under the foreign military sales program. (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)