A-10C's reap benefits of Green Flag deployment

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Spencer Gallien
  • 23rd Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  More than 300 personnel from the 75th Fighter Squadron and the 23rd Maintenance Group recently participated in a joint-operations exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

Green Flag West, a multi-force exercise, creates life-like scenarios for Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines to prepare them for situations they may encounter while deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

"This was our first big deployment with the digitized A-10C Thunderbolt II," said Lt. Col. Samuel Milam, 75th FS commander. "We learned a ton about what it takes to sustain an operation away from our home station both on the maintenance side and operations side.

""The A-10C requires different tools, testers, spare parts, crypto, and mission planning and debriefing equipment than the A-model," added the colonel. "The best way to prepare for these issues is by getting out and actually taking the jets, pilots, maintainers and support personnel off-station and generating sorties."

For the maintainers, this was their first opportunity to get hands-on experience working with the new A-10C in a fast-paced, deployed scenario.

"It was a big deal for us to take 18 of our aircraft out to the exercise," said Master Sgt. Kristian Safford, 23rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron avionics chief. "Taking a whole squadron to an exercise is an incredibly difficult tasking due to the shear amount of equipment needed."

"When you're at home-base you have all your equipment at your disposal; in a temporary duty assignment or while deployed you must work with what you have," he added. "This many jets require everything a squadron owns."

The exercise also included the use of live munitions, giving the life-like scenarios even more realism.

In total, the 75th FS A-10s used more than 2,000 live 30 millimeter cannon rounds and weapons including the AGM-65 Maverick missile, Mk-82 500-pound bomb, Mk-84 2000-pound bomb, GBU-12 500-pound laser-guided bomb, and the GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition.

The JDAM is a bolt-on guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, all-weather "smart" munitions with a GPS-aided inertial navigation system. The all-digital A-10C is the first aircraft in its line to be capable of using the JDAM.

"Using live weapons is invaluable training for our Airmen," said Tech. Sgt. Andre Fairley, 23rd AMXS weapons expediter. "Our crews did a great job; now our Airmen will be able to take that first-hand knowledge of working with lives to their deployed locations."

The Green Flag exercise also gave Airmen a chance to experience what it may be like to deploy.

Senior Airman Josh Paige, 23rd AMXS A-10 avionics journeyman, said this was the first time he had experienced the work-pace and scenarios real-life operations might bring.

"The exercise was a great experience to go through," said Airman Paige. "The differences in avionics from the A-10A to the C model are vastly different; this allows us to eliminate mistakes that could have been without the exercise."

In total, Moody A-10's spent almost 600 hours in the air flying more than 200 sorties during the two-week long exercise.

"Overall, the exercise was a success," said Colonel Milam. ""The largest lesson we learned from this exercise was that the A-10C is much more mission-planning intensive than its predecessor. We are currently reviewing our processes and re-evaluating what equipment, supplies and training we need to sustain our operation. Those lessons could only be learned away from home."