Developing Mission Ready Airmen

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Larry Schneck
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  Since the opening of its classrooms in 1994 and the graduation of the first students, the F-16 Mission Ready Airman course has provided critical flightline skills to all F-16 Fighting Falcon crew chiefs in the Air Force.

It takes only a month to turn a new Airman, referred to as a pipeline student, into an apprentice F-16 crew chief ready for flightline operations. The Luke Air Force Base program completes the initial training started at Sheppard AFB, Texas.

"We turn them into mission-ready crew chiefs at the apprentice, three-skill level in our Air Force specialty code," said Tech. Sgt. Shannon Wood, Detachment 12, 372nd Training Squadron production supervisor and F-16 MRA instructor. "This is the hands-on training, or HOT, portion of their instruction."

The 372nd TRS, Det. 12, is the largest of 47 such units around the world. It has a two-fold mission of providing training support to the 56th Fighter Wing and operating the MRA program.

"This is the first look at daily life on an active flightline for F-16 crew chiefs," said Tech. Sgt. Joseph Irwin, 372nd TRS, Det. 12, MRA training NCO-in-charge. He oversees daily operations at the school and supervises 26 instructors.

Sergeant Irwin was one of the first students to graduate the MRA program 16 years ago. Since his graduation the course has certified more than 9,000 students. Each fiscal year, the period from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, an average of 700 Airmen complete training in areas such as F-16 launch and recovery, aircraft inspections and basic servicing.

"The objectives we teach are the skills F-16 crew chiefs in the combat Air Force say they need to have," Sergeant Wood said. "It's what the day-to-day crew chief does. Essentially, they're able to hit the ground running and launch aircraft."

The beginning of the training cycle happens at Sheppard. The 82nd Training Wing conducts what is called cold training. Sheppard instructors use ground instructional aircraft that don't fly. Luke MRA comes at the end of the course to acclimate the Airmen to a real-world operations tempo. MRA puts crew chiefs through 20 days of academics which includes at least 17 days in the hot Arizona sun training with the jets.

Prior to the development of the MRA course, F-16 crew chiefs didn't see any operational aircraft until arriving at their first duty stations. This meant traditional on-the-job training gave them the first real experience with actual sortie generation. With the MRA program, instructors certify students on core tasks and get them ready for upgrade training to begin the first day they're assigned to an aircraft maintenance unit.

"It's not impossible to believe an Airman could be ready to deploy within four or five months of assignment to a combat unit," Sergeant Wood says.

The speed at which an AMU can qualify a new F-16 crew chief depends on the number and skills of available trainers and other resources at the unit's disposal, according to Sergeant Irwin. The Air Force is fighting in two wars. MRA training remains critical for commanders to prepare their forces for that fight.

"It won't be long until we graduate our 10,000th F-16 crew chief," Sergeant Irwin said.
It's a milestone Sergeant Irwin will pass in the coming months. The MRA program will continue to turn Airmen into mission-ready war fighters as it has done for more than a decade and a half at Luke.