Educating Airmen warriors through aircraft orientation program

  • Published
  • By Capt. Teresa Sullivan
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
Southwest aisa --  Expeditionary Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines looking for an education in air power can find it while deployed here, where U.S. and coalition forces provide orientations on "movement in the third dimension." 

Every Friday the 379th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron hosts the Mission Designated Series of the Week program to promote awareness of the aircraft deployed here and the roles they play in the Global War on Terrorism. 

"The goal of this program is to educate our Airmen," said Lt. Col. William Tart, 376th EOSS commander, of the program which hosts 25 to 40 attendees per week. "We want to educate the support side of the house - those with less exposure to the flight line, and we'd like to provide a forum for our operators to discuss their capabilities and integrate." 

According to the colonel, a native of Charlotte, N.C., attendees leave with a greater understanding of how the airpower machine works and how their support for it is important. 

What better place to learn than the largest air wing in the theater, he said.
"We have the largest tanker wing in the Air Force right here on our airfield,"said the colonel. "We have Aussies, Brits, Marines -this is a fantastic learning opportunity for everyone deployed here. By attending the MDS of the week, Airmen understand what movement from the third dimension brings to the fight." 

Last week's featured airframe was the British GR4 Tornado, the United Kingdom's premier attack fighter jet assigned to the 901st Expeditionary Air Wing, a British Royal Air Force tenant unit of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing. 

Flight Lieutenant Jon Howard, 901st EAW weapons system officer, explained how the GR4 is a two-seat jet equipped with a 27 millimeter cannon used for low-level strafing, a Litening III targeting pod used to view ground activity real-time and deliver enhanced Paveway II thousand pound GPS or laser guided bombs, and a digital joint reconnaissance pod designed to capture still imagery for analysis. 

Flight Lieutenant Howard, provided a summation of a typical sortie for the GR4 pilots.
"We go out in two pairs for seven or eight hours at a time mostly over central and southern Iraq," he said of their mission supporting ground troops. "We provide over watch for the guys on the ground, we search for snipers, and provide IED (improvised explosive device) search protection." 

During the presentation they showed video footage from the targeting pod. Flight Lieutenant Stuart Wallace, 901st EAW pilot, explained what the audience was viewing and how their GR4 aircraft can keep the bad guys off the streets. 

"From the pod, we see guys running from a building during a raid," he said of footage taken last week. "You can see the guys have scattered and a group of four or five of them are trying to run away to hide." 

Once the GR4 pilots see a scenario such as this, they direct the Soldiers on the ground to the area to respond to the situation.