Center manages all OIF ground support

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Scott Elliott
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON – --  Services. Logistics plans. Transportation. Ammo. Aircraft maintenance. Supply. Fuels.

They are diverse, wide-ranging specialties, but they have one thing in common – they are tied together by the same nerve center bringing logistical support to Operation Iraqi Freedom’s air warriors.

The logistics readiness center is the Combined Forces Air Component Command’s single point of contact for logistics issues, a role similar to the Combined Air Operations Center’s role as manager of OIF’s air assets.

“At any given time, about 40 people from the different (logistics) specialties are manning consoles in the LRC,” said Col. Duane A. Jones, CFACC chief of logistics, via telephone from his deployed location. “They have daily contact with each of our bases. It’s from this location that we’re able to tie all of this together.”

OIF’s logistical successes include: pumping an average of more than 1 million gallons of jet fuel per day at three bases; ensuring availability of 91,000 chemical warfare suits; positioning nearly 3 million meals-ready-to-eat; and accounting for nearly 5.3 million pounds of explosives.

Besides the supply-related logistical items, LRC representatives kept track of the maintenance status of every aircraft in the CFACC’s inventory -- including those of other services.

“We’re in a joint environment,” Jones said, “so we not only report the status of Air Force aircraft, we report the maintenance status of Marine Corps and Navy planes coming off aircraft carriers as well.”

Planes physically on board aircraft carriers belong to the Combined Forces Maritime Command, Jones said. Once they become airborne, in support of an OIF air tasking order, they are under the CFACC’s control.

LRC staffers contact their counterparts at each air base and aircraft carrier in the area of operations three times each day to update the status of each aircraft, the colonel said.

“In cases where an aircraft is not mission capable (for maintenance reasons), we’ll ask for an estimated time it will be back in commission,” Jones said. “That way, the CFACC can see when he can expect his forces to be at the necessary level to execute an (air-tasking order).”

According to Jones, the LRC has kept tabs on an aircraft maintenance schedule that has boasted a 98 percent mission capable rate during OIF’s more than 50,000 sorties.