Page 8 - Nellis AFB Bullseye 8-28-15

8 August 28, 2015
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AMU ‘Strikes’ Nellis with mission-ready aircraft
By Airman 1st Class Mikaley Towle
99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. —
The blazing rays of the hot summer sun
beat down on them as they work. The
heat is reflected off the pavement. Greasy
hands grip onto tools, which could be-
come scalding if left sitting in the sun for
even a short period of time.
Despite temperatures moving the
mercury well into triple digits, the
maintainers from the 757th Aircraft
Maintenance Squadron Strike Aircraft
Maintenance Unit work around the
clock to make sure the base’s F-15E Strike
Eagle fleet is ready to support the spe-
cific missions flown by their operational
counterparts.
“Here at Strike we serve two missions;
one is to support the 17th Weapons
Squadron at the U.S. Air Force Weapons
School and the other is to support the
422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron’s
operational testing,” said Capt. Christo-
pher Bright, 757th AMXS Strike AMU
officer in charge. “Each has their own
aircraft and we help generate a schedule
for them each week, so they can execute
their own missions.
“Our goal for the 17th WPS is to
generate sorties per their syllabus so
their three student aircrews can gradu-
ate the class, and we support the F-15E
Strike Eagle division of the 422nd TES
by generating sorties and keeping their
aircraft current and updated with the
newest weapons systems, facilitating
operational testing.”
All software and hardware upgrades
need to be tested before they can be
fielded to Combat Air Force units.
F-16s, F-15Es provide RESCORT for Red Flag
By Staff Sgt. Victoria Sneed
99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — An
aircrew member’s worst case scenario is be-
ing stranded in unfriendly territory. Hav-
ing to eject from an aircraft or surviving an outside of a testing scenario to see if they
aircraft being shot down is scary enough,
but all the briefings and book study ses-
sions can’t prepare for that reality.
Red Flag trains pilots near and far for
the reality of that scenario, including
F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15E Strike
Eagle pilots who provide rescue escort
or RESCORT for search and rescue
operations.
“A RESCORT mission is escorting
a rescue vehicle and giving them pro-
tection, outside what they can provide
themselves, to allow them to get to those
Airmen on the ground,” said Lt. Col.
News
Staff Sgt. Keliah Easley, 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Strike Aircraft Maintenance
Unit F-15E Strike Eagle crew chief, installs a nose strut on an F-15E at Nellis Air Force Base,
Nev., Aug. 19. The nose strut helps the front wheel from shimmying.
“When upgrades are ready for on-
aircraft, operational testing they come
here for uploading,” said Bright. “We’ll
load the hardware or software onto the
aircraft so that they can fly and test it to
collect data, so that eventually the Air
Force can field it out to the units.”
Chief Master Sgt. Clifford Gray, 757th
AMXS Strike AMU superintendent,
highlighted the importance of working
the bugs out of the systems so the aircraft
can perform as advertised.
“A lot of this stuff comes off the draw-
ing board and it’ll look good and make
sense,” said Gray. “But when you put it
on the jet and go out and fly, it doesn’t
work. So you have to work the bugs out
Kevin Jens, 422nd Test and Evaluation
Squadron F-16 test director. “This is new
for the F-16 in a formal training environ-
ment like Red Flag.”
Red Flag 15-3 was the first time the
F-16 had flown a RESCORT mission
could replace other airframes currently
flying the mission.
“The F-16 and F-15E were tasked to
do a test to see if we can do this mission
set,” said Jens. “Even though the F-16 has
done overwatch missions for convoys,
it’s harder to master with the search and
rescue integration.”
With months of testing for both air-
frames, the F-16 was put into play during
Red Flag 15-3.
“It’s not as easy as we thought,” said
Jens. “In Red Flag we are trying to vali-
date things that were tested and we were
BULLSEYE
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U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Mikaley Towle will have one operations squadron, one
schedule, one flying hour program, but
with more aircraft, hours and sorties.
At Nellis Air Force Base, it’s less hours
and sorties, but we’re dealing with the
complexity of two different missions.”
of it to ensure that it’ll work properly. In
theory, these things should work fine, but Strike AMU helps showcase air power
you have to test it to make sure.” as the 17th WPS takes students from the
CAF, who are already on top of their
As part of daily operations, Strike game, and make them even better.
AMU flies four-turn-fours to support
both missions. “They go through U.S. Air Force
Weapons School, go back to their units,
“The 17th WPS and the 422nd TES and become the trainers there,” said
will each fly a two-turn-two, meaning Gray.
that we’ll send up two aircraft, they’ll
come down, we’ll ‘turn’ them, preparing With approximately 170 Airmen as-
them for a second flight, and then we’ll signed to Strike AMU working on 16
send them back up,” said Bright. “So, it’s F-15Es, teamwork is vital to ensuring
a four-turn-four for our maintenance that the day-to-day mission gets done in
unit.” a timely manner.
Master Sgt. Christopher Klubertanz, “Seeing the immediate accomplish-
757th AMXS Strike AMU production su- ments is probably one of the most re-
perintendent added, “Most other places warding things about working at Strike,”
said Bright. “Every day we’ll come in and
see what our team accomplishes by gen-
erating sorties, doing four-turn-fours,
and seeing the aircraft fly. Sometimes the
aircraft doesn’t even get off the ground
or comes back broken, but coming in
the next day and seeing how the team
troubleshot and repaired them is incred-
ibly rewarding.”
Gray said that the men and women
who work at Strike AMU know how im-
portant their roles are and thanks them
for all their hard work and dedication to
the mission.
“Seeing these young individuals out
there being responsible for an aircraft
that costs millions of dollars, watching
them fix it, and seeing the looks on their
faces,” he said. “When the rubber meets
the road, the people make it happen.”
pretty close, but there were some things Squadron personnel recovery division
we hadn’t thought of. Red Flag brings a chief. “If we have assets dedicated to us
chaos that you can’t simulate that can like F-16s, it makes our lives easier to get
break a plan down.” from good guy territory to through bad
guy territory without any threats in our
The fog of war helped those running vicinity or around the survivor.”
RESCORT see the flaws in their armor.
Both the F-16 and F-15E will continue
“Every airframe brings its own to train for the RESCORT role in future
strengths to the mission,” said Jens. Red Flags, providing vital aid to those on
“With Red Flag we are able to see what the ground in need.
everyone is good at and shape around
that.” “On a perfect day with RESCORT it
makes our job really easy by painting
Though the integration of different the picture and getting us all the info
airframes may be difficult for the pilots, we need,” said Humphrey. “By the time
those on the rescue side see the change we get to the survivor we just have to
as positive. land where signaled and put the person
on the helicopter to get them back to
“Even though helicopters have the friendly territory. It’s a tough mission to
ability to defend themselves at a close train to and I’m glad we get the chance
range with 50 caliber or 762 mm mini to integrate RESCORT with the rescue
guns, we have a limited line of sight vehicles at Red Flag.”
when we are ‘in the weeds’,” said Maj.
Jay Humphrey, 414th Combat Training