fact, the proposal by the 366th and other USAF units would involve no dropping of live ordnance, and the land would actually be better protected than it is now, in the hands of the Department of the Interior.
Another major project run out of the headquarters squadron is the consolidation and building program which will bring the 34th BS from its present base at Ellsworth AFB to Mountain Home. This requires building additional ramp space and hangars capable of holding and servicing the big B-1Bs operated by the 34th.
The rest of the wing includes a series of functional groups, with specific roles in keeping the wing operable and combat ready. These include:
• The 366th Operations Group—Controls the flying squadrons and the range control squadron for the Wing.
• 366th Logistics Group—Handles the various logistics, maintenance, supply, and transportation units in the 366th.
• 366th Combat Support Group—Controls the combat engineering, communications, and services.
• 366th Medical Group—Provides a range of medical and dental services for the wing and its dependents.
Each group must operate with great autonomy if the wing is to function properly. Let's look at each in detail.
366th Operations Group
The 366th Operations Group runs the flying squadrons of the wing. In April 1994, this unit was led by Colonel Robin E. Scott. A big man with a broad face and a marvelous sense of fun, he had his first job in the wing as commander of the 391st FS, the 366th's F-15E Strike Eagle squadron. Behind Scott's jolly smile is a mind that thinks all the time about getting the wing into combat faster. Every military unit has a mission briefing that is routinely delivered to visiting VIPs. When Scott gives the briefing on the 366th Wing concept of operations, he does it with passion and lots of direct answers to questions. The big question is how the wing would get to where it might have to fight in a crisis. The answer involves a lot of packaging and planning. Another question for the Operations Group is how the wing will fly and fight when it gets to the location of the crisis. The 366th may have to fight for up to a week without reinforcement or outside support. This is a tall order for only a handful of aircraft and aircrews, and it will require the wing leadership to make all the right decisions at the right time, and in the right order.
366TH OPERATIONS SUPPORT SQUADRON. The 366th Operations Support Squadron (OSS) is the staff organization that runs the five flying squadrons of the Operations Group for Colonel Scott. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Gregg 'Tank' Miller, it is the key to the whole 366th CONOPS plan. In addition to interfacing with the other groups of the wing, the 366th OSS provides the wing's ability to generate its own daily Air Tasking Orders (ATOs). ATOs furnish the script for everything that happens in the air, from the time and altitude for a tanker to establish a track to refuel other aircraft, down to whether the Army can fire artillery or guided missiles through a particular chunk of airspace at a particular time. One reason for the success of Operation Desert Storm was the quality of the ATOs built by General Horner's CENTAF staff. But the 366th has to do this job with a lot fewer people (forty-two vs. several hundred for the CENTAF staff), and less equipment. On deployment, the 366th OSS forms what is known as the 366th Air Operations Center (AOC), which brings its own tent city to operate from a 'bare bones' base. Some good tools help make up for the lack of personnel. The main tool is the Contingency Tactical Air Control System (TACS) Automated Planning System, or CTAPS. This is a network of computer workstations that ties together a series of databases on intelligence, terrain, known targets, and aircraft capabilities, enabling the 366th AOC staff to rapidly build and distribute ATO plans to everyone in or attached to the wing. Each day's complete ATO (which can be several hundred pages of text) can be transmitted almost instantly via land line, printed hard copy, disk, or even a satellite communications link like the popular suitcase-sized Hammer Rick system. During Desert Storm hard copies had to be hand-carried out to CVWs in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf by airplane each day. Now almost every military air unit in the United States and allied nations has CTAPS- compatible equipment that allows them to receive and use an electronic ATO.
The process of building a day's ATO begins several days before it is executed. The Air Operations Center team is split into two twelve-hour shifts, with part of each shift working on the ATOs to be executed two and three days later, and the rest working on the ATO to be executed the next day. Once the ATO has been blessed by the AOC chief and the local JFACC (such as General McCloud), it can be distributed to the flying squadrons for execution of the next day's missions.
The 366th's ability to generate ATOs is limited by the number of personnel that can be dedicated to the task. The estimate is that the 366th AOC staff could churn out ATOs for about five hundred daily sorties — comparable to a major exercise like Red/Green Flag (and about 10 % to 20 % of what the CENTAF staff generated during the 1991 Gulf War); and they could probably sustain this level of output for a week. After that the forty-two people on the team would doubtless be exhausted and require reinforcement. By that time, hopefully, a big, well- equipped CinC staff, like the 9th Air Force/CENTAF from Shaw AFB, South Carolina, would have arrived to relieve the 366th.
It is important to remember that the 366th Wing is designed as a 'fire brigade,' to deal with a crisis while more substantial forces are mustered and sent to assist. This tends to draw some grim humor from the members of the wing. They know exactly what the odds might be in a major crisis like Iraq or Iran, and that casualties might be the price of the job.
389th Fighter Squadron
The 389th FS, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Wood, is the 366th Wing's F-16 squadron, and they are equipped with brand-new Block 52D F-16C Fighting Falcons. The 389th dates back to May 1943, when it was formed as part of the original 366th Fighter Group. Since that time, a 389th FS has usually been a part of the 366th's complement of units. Aircrews from the 389th were credited with twenty-nine air-to-air kills (twenty-three in World War II, six in Vietnam).
Currently, the 389th is equipped with eighteen Primary Authorized Aircraft (PAA), which refers to the combat strength of the unit. The actual total of aircraft controlled by the 389th FS (or any other USAF unit) is usually about one third greater than the PAA, and includes a small number of two-seat trainers (to maintain proficiency and certifications), as well as other F-16Cs that are either in the depot/maintenance pipeline or represent spares. In addition, the 366th is staffed at about 1.25 aircrew per flight position per aircraft, meaning that combat missions may have to be flown by wing support staff, who are rated as aircrews.
The F-16s of the 389th have been greatly 'tricked out' with the addition of new systems designed to improve their capabilities over the original F-16s assigned to the 389th when it was formed. These include:
• The latest Block 50/52 software to allow the full use of the APG-68's radar modes.
• The capability to fire both the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AGM-88 HARM missiles.
• The addition of an ASQ-213 HTS pod for every aircraft in the squadron.
