Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

eventually will operate F/A-22s and F-35s.

For ten years the 366th was the flagship of the Air Force's expeditionary concept. In 1991 it was redesignated the 366th Wing (no longer specifically Fighter) with a variety of attached units, including the 34th Bomb Squadron with B-1Bs, 22nd Air Refueling Squadron KC-135Rs, and EF-111A Ravens. The Air Force's battle laboratory focused on Mountain Home in 1997, laying extra emphasis on the quick deployment of a composite wing containing its own fighters, bombers, tankers, and support units.

But the force structure began changing: the Ravens left service in 1993, leaving the wing dependent on Navy and Marine jammers when deployed. Eventually the Lancers and Stratotankers were removed in 2002. The 389th Fighter Squadron's F-16Cs also departed. In September 2002, the 366th once again was a Tactical Fighter Wing, no longer in the expeditionary business but still highly capable with F-15Cs and — Ds in the 390th Wild Boars and Strike Eagles in the 391st Bold Tigers.

If the 366th's history proves anything, it is the constant change in force structure and mission emphasis. Therefore, we wonder where the next decade will take us. How will those developments affect the aircrews, maintainers, and planners of the 366th in the 21st century?

MILLENNIUM PLANNING

The Air Force began planning for the post-millennium era with a doctrinal study titled Global Reach-Global Power. But it became dated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, forcing the service to begin a year-and-a-half survey to determine the force structure through 2025.

The result was Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force. Like previous studies, it focused on the best means of achieving and maintaining the ability to deter, fight, and win future conflicts in air and space. Global Engagement was linked to the Joint Chiefs of Staff document titled Joint Vision 2010. While all services acknowledge the increasing reliance on mutual support and joint war fighting, the Air Force insists, 'it embodies our belief that in the 21st Century, the strategic instrument of choice will be air and space power.'

The Pentagon loves buzzwords and key phrases, and Global Engagement is no exception. Nor was Joint Vision 2010. The latter stressed a range of military operations under the umbrella of 'full spectrum dominance.' It includes joint operations featuring concepts such as Dominant Maneuver, Precision Engagement, Full Dimensional Protection, and Focused Logistics. It also realizes the increasing importance of superior intelligence in the information age: 'the ability to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate information while denying an adversary's ability to do the same.' While probably few aircrews of the Wild Boars or Bold Tigers are thinking of such things when they tuck their gear in the well, the concepts govern tactical missions and capabilities.

CORE COMPETENCIES

The Air Force deals in what it calls 'core competencies,' those features that distinguish the aerospace mission. They include Rapid Global Mobility, Precision Engagement, Global Attack, Air and Space Superiority, Information Superiority, and Agile Combat Support.

Most of the core competencies are self-evident. Rapid Global Mobility refers to aviation's inherent advantage of speed and range. In addition to deploying tactical units almost anywhere on earth in a matter of days, the Air Force can also transport Army or Marine Corps forces to a war theater or trouble spot. The problem, of course, tends to be bases — as the Tailhook Navy likes to remind Congress during appropriation hearings. Aircraft carriers represent four and a half acres of sovereign territory that moves at 30 knots without needing to play 'Mother, may I?' with wavering allies, as we saw in Turkey during 'Iraqi Freedom.' On the other hand, due to mismanagement in the first Bush Administration, the Navy found itself out of the deep strike mission unless Air Force tankers were available. Jointness came on forced wings, but it came regardless.

Precision Engagement also speaks for itself. The 'precision revolution' of the 1990s became standard television fare during Desert Storm, but since then the statistics have flip-flopped. During Desert Storm only about 10 % of the ordnance dropped were Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs). When America retaliated for 9/11 in Afghanistan, almost 90 % of aviation munitions were laser or GPS guided. In some instances, the published 'miss distance' of certain weapons was smaller than a typical target.

But precision has other components as well. Intelligence is part of the equation, with more and more 'real time' targeting data from a variety of sources. Some aspects are technical, such as satellite coverage, unmanned drones, or radio intercepts. Others are the most basic, 'Humint' in the trade, referring to human intelligence sources. One man (or woman) on the ground with an unobstructed view of the 'subject' and a cell phone uplink can help put PGMs on target PDQ.

Global Attack is exactly what it says: the ability to strike almost anywhere on the planet's surface. Whether it's true or not, the accusation has been made that some airpower zealots insist that the United States can rule the world from Omaha. Certainly the ability to deploy intercontinentally has been demonstrated more than once, since the limiting factor in today's Air Force is not aircraft or weapons, but aircrew fatigue. It's one response to the never-ending one-upmanship with the Navy: if it's politically inconvenient for an ally to permit USAF basing, then all the Air Force needs is ample tankers to support B-1s or B-2s from ConUS to reach the target. The problem is, of course, a twelve-hour cycle time, which tends to limit sorties. For the 366th and other fighter wings, such extreme reach is possible but impractical under most circumstances.

Air and Space Superiority now go hand in glove. They are closely related to Information Superiority, since intelligence and targeting are inextricably mixed. In fact, it has been asserted that in reality America no longer has the U.S. Air Force but the U.S. Air and Space Force. Satellites for reconnaissance and communications have become invaluable, and their importance is in no danger of diminishing. Neither are recon drones such as the Predator, which may even take over part of the SEAD mission in suppressing enemy air defenses.

Agile Combat Support addresses the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to specific goals. Joint operations with the Army, Navy, and allied forces figure in the equation, employing varied assets to meet assigned tasks with responsiveness rather than massive logistics. 'Reach back' is the operative buzzword, deploying from the continental United States more often than from overseas bases, which are expensive to maintain.

So much for the doctrinal aspects. What about the hardware of the future?

NEW TOOLS FOR OLD MISSIONS

The phrase is 'block obsolescence.' In 2003, the U.S. Air Force's inventory was beginning to show its age. The average airframe was twenty-three years old: 1980 construction. Like all statistics, this is misleading — it reflects forty-year-old B-52s and last year's F-16s. Increasingly, success in air combat depends on aircraft systems — mainly electronics — rather than on the airplanes themselves, but, especially in the fighter world, high time airframes present problems. With increasing stress and its attendant reduction in remaining fatigue life, combat aircraft just plain wear out. Though the Air Force's 'howgozit' monitoring of critical airframe parts (especially wing spars) can track the trends, aircrews deserve a break. The last F-15Cs were built in 1988, and if an Eagle has a theoretical service life of 1,800 hours remaining, a fudge factor is needed to afford some velvet. That aircraft may well go the full 1,800 hours with no serious trouble. Or it may come apart prematurely. The solution is to replace the critical components or buy a new airplane. Either way, the taxpayer gets tagged again for an airframe or systems upgrade.

Systems: aye, there's the rub. Many aircraft built in the 1970s and 1980s lack compatibility with current avionics. For instance, the A-10 'Warthog' was built with an electrical system incapable of handling state-of-the-art radar and computers. The problem is aggravated by the growing demands and diminishing assets of the post-Cold