Courtesy Photo | ALI BASE, Iraq -- The southern third of Iraqi skies are controlled by a small group of...... read more read more
By Tech. Sgt. Paul Dean
407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
Dec. 29 2005
ALI BASE, Iraq --Another small dot drags a string of numbers with it as it hesitantly shuffles onto the screen; now there are 30 of them (dots with numbers that is).
Airman 1st Class Grant Gers slips a strip of paper no wider than the margin in your favorite magazine and shorter than two sugar packs end to end toward him, neatly but quickly enters the squawk (four of the numbers'the call sign), the time, adjusts his clear-straw microphone and makes contact: "Welcome to my sky." The aircraft has entered the 50,000 square miles of Iraqi airspace controlled by a small group of Airmen working at the 407th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron Area Control Center"a shoebox sized container too small to fall down in.
The aircraft will be under the control of the 407th EOSS ACC until one of the controllers releases it to a controller from neighboring airspace. It doesn't matter if the aircraft is Air Force One, a Coalition fighter, civil airliner, tanker, cargo bin or John Travolta tooling around in his Boeing 707, if it's flying in the southern third of Iraq the 407th EOSS ACC owns it. The ACC sees every move the aircraft makes while it's in range of the radar, which sweeps every 4 seconds, arcs into two other countries, north to the suburbs of Baghdad, and scours from ground level to a ceiling of 60,000 feet.
ACC controllers will help the aircraft keep the correct course, log its progress through the airspace (so there's a record of the last contact point in case of in-flight emergencies or radar failure), tell the pilot when to exit the assigned airway (routing to the destination, refueling track or kill box) and keep it a safe distance from other aircraft. The ACC Airmen are so good at their job they can (and do) fly civilian and non-tactical military traffic through airspace being used for tactical operations.
"It's all about moving them safely and smartly," said Airman Gers, deployed from the 436th Operations Support Squadron, Dover Air Force Base, Del., who thrives on the responsibility and trust placed in him as a controller.
The challenges of moving tactical and non-tactical aircraft through the same airspace have increased for the controllers of Air and Space Expeditionary Force 7/8. Civilian air traffic through southern Iraq has increased 14 percent and the Combined Air Operations Center, Southwest Asia, has reported significant increases in close air support and other tactical operations for October through December. Both situations are deliberate: the tactical operations were in support of the constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections; the increase in civilian traffic is designed to grow a revenue stream for Iraq in the form of overflight tariffs.
With increasing stabilization of Iraq and progress toward returning control of the skies to an Iraqi civil authority, airways have been carved in skies that were previously hampered by the onset of no fly zones in April 1991 following Gulf War 1. And although none of the east-west routes cross the southern third of Iraq controlled by the 407th EOSS ACC, all traffic coming from the south has to flow through Ali Base controlled airspace.
Looking down, controllers seem oblivious to the actual sweep line as it swings around the center of their radar screens. They are focused on the dots and numbers left in the wake of the line as they float across a backdrop featuring the north and south air routes, borders of neighboring countries, the northern cutoff line of their area of control, air refueling tracks, and a grid overlay.
The cells of the grid are called "kill boxes" when tactical operations are being conducted.
Fighters supporting ground operations or targeting the enemy with offensive measures fly into the kill box with the help of the ACC, traveling the same flight paths as any other aircraft, and then go into visual flight rules for the shoot and destroy part of the mission when the ACC releases them. Meanwhile, the same controllers nonchalantly direct non-tactical traffic through and above the same space"giving a vertical cushion between operations and the friendlier skies above.
"Things can get a little crazy here sometimes," said Airman Gers, drawing an outline around four of his cells. The quad gets a lot of tactical action and has a major air route traveling right through the middle. The 407th EOSS ACC controls 70 potential kill boxes.
Even if an area is tactically stagnant for the moment, "we have two major airways with refueling tracks alongside each of them. The civilian traffic is flying right through the middle of our military operations," said Staff Sgt. Monica Pubillones, deployed from the 509th Operations Support Squadron, Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.
A refueling track is a designated route in the sky that tankers fly to rendezvous with receivers (the aircraft gassing up). The tanker flies around the path at a set speed and altitude waiting for (prescheduled) customers. And although the refueling part of the ACC mission can be low-key by itself, fighters will often "yo-yo," one of them working a kill box, going for gas, and returning to the kill box, while a companion fighter does the same thing, each crisscrossing the north-south airways in opposite directions and on the opposite schedule as the other.
"That can get pretty hairy," said Airman Gers.
"This is much more intense than stateside traffic control," said Sergeant Pubillones. When you have tactical and non-tactical aircraft sharing the same space "your situational awareness is expanded to every level, but at the same time you have to be very spontaneous. Every controller that I know is a "Type A [personality].""
Not only do the controllers deal with more air traffic here at the Ali Base ACC than at home station (regularly "working" more than 100 aircraft in 6 hours at the screen here), they are doing it using a facility designed for temporary use. The trailer and radar were designed for 4 months use. That was three years ago.
And that's where the strips of paper come in to play.
Notations are made on each flight progress strip each time a controller speaks to somebody in the aircraft: time, position, speed and altitude are monitored closely. The strips are used to guide the aircraft when the radar has a "moment."
Spread out neatly in front of a controller, with only a blank view of the airspace on their screen and the information on the flight progress strip, each controller is able to work the aircraft through to their destination or keep them on their overflight path. They don't even view the situation as emergent when the radar fails: a similar process is used when somebody has to take a break. A little coordination and a handoff of the flight progress strips transfers control of aircraft from one controller to another. The pilot hears a new voice, doesn't question why"because it's routine"and the mission continues.
"In many ways it's all about teamwork," said Staff Sgt. Caroline Parker, C-Crew shift supervisor, deployed from Headquarters, United States Air Forces Europe, Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "We have to work together, count on one another and take care of each other in this job. Too many people are depending on us to do our jobs perfectly."
"It isn't a job for somebody with no patience," said Sergeant Pubillones. "But I love it; I truly enjoy coming to work everyday."
"I wouldn't want to do anything else," said Airman Gers.
| Date Taken: | 12.29.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 12.29.2005 09:56 |
| Story ID: | 4216 |
| Location: | ALI BASE, IQ |
| Web Views: | 104 |
| Downloads: | 27 |
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