Range keepers help pilots stay combat ready

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Leo Brown
  • 442nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. (AFPN) --  Few jobs in the Air Force call for a person to drive a road grader, put out fires, build Soviet T-72 tanks, run a lawn mower and, on the ground, be the eyes and ears for combat aircraft.

But that's all in a day's work for the Air National Guardsmen of the Missouri Air National Guard's Det. 1 of the 131st Fighter Wing at Fort Leonard Wood's Cannon Range near Laquey, Mo.

The range has a host of customers, including Army and Air National Guard units, but the primary users are A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from Air Force Reserve Command's 442nd Fighter Wing from Whiteman Air Force Base.

"The (A-10s) make up about 80 percent of our flights," said Lt. Col. Scott Porter, the range commander.

Sporting numerous targets, the range is vital in helping the A-10 pilots sharpen their war-fighting skills. If they didn't use Cannon Range, which is about 130 miles from Whiteman AFB, they would have to fly to ranges in Arkansas or Kansas, which would increase flight time and decrease training time.

"Our mission statement is to provide a relevant, realistic range for aircraft," said Senior Master Sgt. Randy Flores, the range's NCO in charge. "All the simulation is invaluable to pilots. Our biggest thrill is when pilots deploy, and they come back and say, 'We didn't lose a pilot or a plane.' That means we're doing our job here."

Pilots have high praise for the range's staff.

"They're very professional," said Maj. Les Bradfield, an A-10 pilot from the 442nd Operations Support Flight. "They keep the range safe, but they keep it as realistic as they can. It's critical for our mission proficiency.

"At times when the range isn't available, we have to practice differently and it's not real-world training," Major Bradfield said. "They've built villages and various tactical targets and, with what's going on in the real world, it's critical." 

"I think Cannon has put a lot of hard work into making target arrays that are realistic," said Capt. Mike Sadler, a pilot in the 303rd Fighter Squadron. "They've even gone as far as cutting out silhouettes of people. They have ground radar threat emitters that can simulate enemy threat systems, and the jets can pick that up. So it simulates that we're being targeted. They have smoky SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) they can launch. They're not at the aircraft, but in the vicinity of the aircraft during a pass. It launches, trails smoke and simulates a missile launch so we can react accordingly."

Since Det. 1 is isolated from other Air Force or Air National Guard units, members of the staff need to be resourceful. They are their own specialists in public affairs, supply, civil engineering and many other fields.

"We're like a small family," Sergeant Flores said. "It's like we're on an island here. We have good and bad days like married couples. If you're not careful here, you can lose perspective and forget what you're about in the bigger picture. You have to focus on your job. If you don't have the facilities ready, the pilots can't do what they're supposed to do."

The Cannon Range Airmen wear a patch on their battle dress uniforms that proclaims "PARATI AD AGENDUM," which means "ready for action." They must be just that, especially with operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom continuing.

"Every branch, except the Coast Guard has used us," Colonel Porter said. "We provide a service, and you set your operating hours by what your customers need. If I have a special operations unit that goes until 5 in the morning, so be it. We have to look at what's in the nation's best interests and look at what units are going to war."

When the range is "hot" and customers fly in with live munitions, eyes and ears are alert in the 52-foot tall control tower, on the ground and in a small trailer near the tower's base.

In the trailer sits Tech. Sgt. Jarrod Schomaker, who monitors the Joint Advanced Weapons Scoring System computers. Sergeant Schomaker is one of five NCOs who have completed rigorous upgrade training on JAWSS. Working in conjunction with 14 cameras on two towers, and, in Sergeant Schomaker's words "a slew of microphones," the new system is extremely precise in tracking and scoring pilots' efforts.

"We've had this system since September 2006," Sergeant Schomaker said. "At first, I think some pilots resisted it, but it's very unique because it's so user friendly. Before this, it was all 'eyeball.' JAWSS scores and pinpoints bullets, bombs, everything. It takes the human element out of it, and you get pretty precise with it. It's accurate to less than two inches in the strafe pit and within one meter on other targets, and it makes scoring so much more efficient.

"The pilots will dictate to us which target they want to hit and probably 80 percent of the time it changes," he said. "We preload it in here and score it. We can say, 'Bomb 1 was so and so, Bomb 2 was so and so.' We're recording the pilots' voices, their actions, everything. When the pilots get their printouts, they can make their adjustments. It helps us support what we know and it sometimes changes the pilots' way of thinking."

Sergeant Schomaker pointed out that none of the JAWSS' capabilities would be available if the range staff hadn't put in some hard labor, digging nearly 7,000 feet of trench for cables.

"It took a lot of planning and a lot of work," he said. "It's amazing how much each person (on our staff) impacts us. It's huge."

In the tower, a range control officer, range operations supervisors and others carefully eye aircraft as they circle and make their passes.

Three telephones, seven radios, a couple of computer screens and a maze of wires cover the tower desk, but the communication between the tower, the pilots and Sergeant Schomaker are crystal clear.

The tower Airmen must talk frequently with Federal Aviation Administration officials in Kansas City and Springfield, Mo., as well as other ranges and Fort Leonard Wood's airfield.

"It gets kind of busy in here," Sergeant Flores said. "It's all about safety. You want to make sure no one is down range. You make sure the range gates are closed. If we're going laser-hot, you make sure everyone has night-vision goggles or protective glasses on. You make sure everyone is in position."

No matter how intense things get, the staff agreed that safety is Priority 1. 

"Safety is the name of the game," Colonel Porter said.

"We're in the middle of nowhere," Sergeant Flores said. "We're a 45-minute ambulance ride from Fort Leonard Wood. Thank goodness we haven't had anyone hurt."

The staff members man equipment ranging from lasers to lawn mowers. Keeping the 4,800-acre range up to speed requires them to drive road graders and bulldozers, and be trained in firefighting.

Their safety efforts also require them to be good environmentalists.

"Every year, we do a 'clean-up' of a portion of the range," Colonel Porter said. "We go through the range with explosive ordnance disposal specialists. It's really a huge FOD (foreign object damage) walk. We pick up everything and inspect everything. We burn off that portion of our range each year so we can see each object on the ground."

"We recycle everything," Sergeant Flores said. "M-60 tanks, bombs and bullets."

While the range residue removal and recycling efforts are friendly to the land and to tax payers' wallets, some interesting finds have been bagged.

"This was an artillery range in World War II," Sergeant Flores said. "We find 155mm rounds from then, 1940s and 1950s practice bombs. We've even found munitions from 1914."

(Courtesy Air Force Reserve Command News Service) 

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