Jobs For Flight-Line Maintainers Will Change In 2009

After seven years of experimenting, thousands of flight-line maintainers will leave their maintenance squadrons and once again come under the control flying squadrons in 2008.  Despite the fact that the new orders will affect only fighter and combat search-and-rescue wings, similar changes could come to all wings including mobility units in 2009.

The topic of putting crew chiefs and weapons loaders back into fighter and combat search-and-rescue squadrons has been under discussion for several months.  Finally, on December 7^th, 2007, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley gave the green light to make the change, which will take effect between July and November.  This will also include Guard and reserve wings.  Moseley’s decision opened the door to moving crew chiefs from other types of aircraft, such as airlifters bombers, out of maintenance squadrons and into flying squadrons.

Beyond flight-line maintenance, Moseley approved shifting logistics readiness squadrons and ariel port squadrons out of mission support groups and into a new version of a maintenance group called the “material group” by November.  This move is Air Force wide.  This change will return fighter and CSRA squadrons to how they were organized from the early 1990s until 2002 when then Chic of Staff Gen. John Jumper placed crew chiefs in maintenance squadrons and separate chains of command.  Each maintenance squadron had a set of crew chiefs and others organized as aircraft maintenance units that focused on a singe squadron’s needs.

The realignments come at the same time the Air Force continues with plans to consolidate many back-shop repair functions. By 2013, the service wants to move functions such as engine overhauls and complex electronics repairs to a select number of bases, rather than requiring every wing to have those capabilities.

Driving much of the latest change is Moseley’s belief that squadrons should be organized at their home bases the same way they work while deployed. “With focus on the mission, we can resource our squadrons with all the elements necessary to accomplish their mission and ensure a consistent structure at home and deployed,” Moseley told major command bosses in the Dec. 7 letter.

Technically, when a fighter squadron deploys to Iraq or Afghanistan, the crew chiefs become part of the deployed base’s maintenance group. In practice, fighter maintainers answer to the deployed fighter squadron commander who is responsible for getting the jets to their targets. Because the maintainers and pilots deploy from the same wing and already know each other, it is often more efficient to work with each other directly instead of running requests up and down separate chains of command.

Moseley said he believes that if a fighter or combat search-and-rescue squadron commander is going to be responsible for meeting the daily demands of the air war, then the squadron commander also must control the maintenance of his squadron’s planes or helicopters. “Aircraft maintenance is a vital element of a flying squadron’s mission, and the maintainers that directly support sortie generation belong in that chain of command,” Moseley said.

Passions run high on both sides of the debate over where flight-line maintainers belong. A retired maintenance colonel, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disagrees with Moseley’s fundamental assertion that flying and maintenance squadrons are disconnected.

“The fighter squadron commander and the maintenance squadron commander are in the same chain of command; they work for the wing commander,” he said. Sortie generation reflects the overall health of a wing’s aircraft, the officer added. Without expertise and long-term planning for aircraft maintenance — which goes beyond a flying squadron’s immediate needs — a wing ends up with fewer aircraft ready to fly, not more.

The job of putting Moseley’s order into action goes to the Air Staff’s directorates for logistics and installations and mission support. Maj. Gen. Gary McCoy, Air Force director of logistics readiness, said he understands airmen may say they’ve heard this all before. “In my 30 years, this will be the fourth [maintenance and logistics reorganization] for me,” McCoy said. During those 30 years, the world and the Air Force have changed, McCoy said.

Practices that made sense when aircraft rarely deployed may not be useful in today’s Air Force, in which deployments are frequent. Between now and November, the Air Staff and major commands will be working out how to implement Moseley’s orders, McCoy said.

Right now, there is no time line for when crew chiefs and weapons loaders move into fighter and CSAR squadrons, other than to complete the switch by November, McCoy said. Flying squadrons that now number fewer than 100 airmen, predominately pilots and other rated officers, will grow overnight to units of 300 or more people, mostly enlisted airmen. A fighter squadron commander who had little direct say in day-to-day maintenance or enlisted personnel issues now will be responsible for his unit’s flight-line repairs and managing a much more diverse work force.

Preparing squadron commanders for that new responsibility means teaching them a deeper understanding of maintenance, McCoy said. The new arrangement shouldn’t be totally new to the squadron’s senior pilots because most of them would have flown as captains when maintainers were assigned to squadrons.

The transition should be eased by AMUs essentially moving intact from the maintenance squadrons to the flying squadrons, McCoy said. The AMUs are expected to retain their cadre of senior noncommissioned officer leadership and maintenance officers, typically led by a senior captain or major. As the service prepares to move CSAR and fighter maintainers, it will also take a hard look at the possibility of moving crew chiefs in a wider range of flying squadrons, including airlift, bombers and special operations units, McCoy said. Traditionally, the service has kept crew chiefs who maintain large aircraft in maintenance squadrons, McCoy said. But Moseley said he believes wings should function the same way across the service unless there are good reasons not to, McCoy added.

The second part of the transition to be finished by November is moving aerial port squadrons and logistics readiness squadrons out of mission support groups into the same group as the remaining maintenance squadrons. This new organization is called the materiel group. Most wings have a logistics readiness squadron to handle supply, motor pool and transportation duties in addition to overseeing the departures and arrivals of deployed airmen.

Aerial port squadrons, primarily found in airlift wings, handle the loading and offloading of airlifted supplies. At large airlift hubs, such as Dover Air Force Base,

Del., aerial port operations involve hundreds of airmen and civilians working in warehouses large enough to play football in — if the floors weren’t filled with pallets.

The idea of moving the two squadrons into the materiel group is to put each base’s supply chain in the same group. “This alignment will consolidate traditional logistics functions under a single logistics leader in the wing,” Moseley told commanders.

Mission support groups will continue to handle other duties, including security, civil engineering and personnel. At the same time, the Air Force will look at deeper and wider changes to how maintenance and logistics units are structured. Moseley predicts that those studies will be completed by summer 2009.

From a personnel standpoint, the creation of the materiel group should make it easier to combine some Air Force specialty codes. One study, called Sierra Bravo, requested by Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, recommended that airmen who repair ground vehicles, such as trucks and buses, and those who maintain flight-line aerospace ground equipment, such as portable generators, be merged into a single AFSC. One roadblock to such a merger is that the aerospace equipment repair airmen were in maintenance groups, while the vehicle mechanics were in mission support groups. The changes put both AFSCs in the materiel group. McCoy said AFSC mergers aren’t part of the changes planned for the coming year, but the new alignment will make it easier to group airmen with common skills. McCoy assures that although the Air Force’s manpower continues to shrink, these maintenance and logistics changes aren’t tied to cutting positions.