Photo By Airman Moises Vasquez | U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Kawan Thorton, a crew chief assigned to the 525th...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – The 525th Fighter Generation Squadron executed an internal five-day Agile Combat Employment exercise focused on empowering its noncommissioned officers Dec. 4 through 8.
Over the last 12 months, the 525th FGS and 525th Fighter Squadron completed a deployment to Kadena Air Base, Japan, and participated in an ACE exercise called AGILE REAPER, however, this one was different.
“We named the exercise ‘ARCTIC BITE’ and it will do a few things for us,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Joshua Belanger, the 525th FGS director of operations. “It will validate assumptions made in our ACE planning measure for aircraft, people, and equipment, and exercise our ability to use mission command in prioritizing sortie generation with minimal resources available.”
Mission command, part of the ACE doctrine, is an approach to command and control that empowers subordinate decision-making for flexibility, initiative, and responsiveness in the accomplishment of a commander’s intent. For example, if a group of personnel are separated from their commander and communications are down, but they have their commander’s intent – get those aircraft in the air – mission command allows noncommissioned officers or junior personnel the ability to make the decision to either get that aircraft in the air, or ground it based on the needs of the plane.
“Mission command was key to Exercise ARCTIC BITE in that it provided the flexibility needed to make important decisions in clutch moments,” said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Phillip Clements, the 525th FGS specialist flight chief. “Being in an aircraft maintenance environment that supports flying operations requires quick decision-making to produce necessary sorties for various missions. We found this extremely beneficial during this exercise.”
Clements explained that the planning for this exercise was accomplished by his ACE team, where they built plans to test single-man launches, minimum manning for performing maintenance during a launch, and even how many weapons crews would be required to unload and reload aircraft.
“We also incorporated the multi-capable Airman model in debrief operations and performing maintenance tasks normally completed by a specific Air Force specialty code using another AFSC,” Clements said. “For example, instead of debriefing in our standard facilities, we were able to debrief at the aircraft, as this will be the primary method used.”
Clements explained that just two days in, his team has already identified limiting factors of success, all of which inform his team for how they will adjust to operate in their next exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in January 2024.
“Some lessons learned were that resupply operations need to be carefully planned out and are based on windows of opportunity, which can be either infrequent or quite often,” Clements said. “Our information technology team is also necessary to assist when we encounter issues related to their systems we utilize for maintenance documentation.”
During the exercise, the 525th FGS were also able to provide a proof of concept for a new two-bottle gaseous oxygen cart, which is vital to reduce the size of equipment sent to a spoke location. Finally, the unit was able to identify the need for additional aerospace ground equipment not originally deemed necessary.
| Date Taken: | 12.11.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 12.29.2023 15:27 |
| Story ID: | 461053 |
| Location: | ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 173 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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