Generating Airpower: The F-16's Firepower

by Senior Airman Derek VanHorn
35th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

7/3/2014 - MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan -- (This article is part of a series featuring the 35th Maintenance Group on their ability to generate airpower for the 35th Fighter Wing's Wild Weasels. The 35 MXG is compiled of 22 career fields that support the mission of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, the only SEAD wing in Pacific Air Forces.)

The phones in Staff Sgt. Joshua Talbot's office ring often, but that's expected - he mans four of them every shift. But among the dozens of calls he receives every day, there's always one that's arguably more important than the rest.

It's the call that delivers the 35th Fighter Wing's flying schedule and triggers the process that turns Misawa's F-16 Fighting Falcons from demo airplanes into war-fighting machines.

"Once we find out what mission sets our pilots are flying, we immediately determine what munitions we need for the aircraft," said Talbot, a munitions controller with the 35th Maintenance Squadron.

Working at Munitions Control and with a virtual 360-degree view of flying operations, Talbot kicks off a complex process that ammo troops have mastered through countless sortie preparations. He calls a handful of shops that spring into action to prep Misawa's fleet of F-16s with a variety of potentially devastating munitions.

On the end of one of those first calls is Staff Sgt. Eduardo Hernandez, a crew chief with Precision Guided Munitions - a section made up of about 25 Airmen who specialize in missiles.

"As soon as we get notified, we start sending out missiles," Hernandez said.

His shop handles a variety of them, including AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles and AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, both designed to seek and destroy enemy radar-equipped systems, and AIM-9 Sidewinders -- supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missiles.

Hernandez said the first move is tasking a driver and a partner to ride shotgun to retrieve the missiles from their igloos - large, cellar-like storage units housing scores of ammo. Their overall collection is officially called the munitions storage area, but the ammo family simply calls it the "bomb dump."

It's a massive collection capable of inconceivable destruction, and one man -- Master Sgt. Michael Uncapher -- is charged with maintaining 100 percent accountability of the stockpile at all times.

"Every munition must be serviceable, properly configured, accounted for, meet weight requirements and be stored and maintained properly," said Uncapher, munitions accountable systems officer of the $257 million supply.

After picking up the necessary mission weapon sets scattered across ammo's expansive reign, each missile and trailer it's transported on is meticulously inspected to ensure serviceability.

A few buildings away from the PGM crew are the conventional maintenance troops executing the same laborious process simultaneously, all in the pursuit of airpower. These Airmen work mainly with munitions such as Mk 82 bombs, 20 mm Gatling gun munition and chaff and flare.

"It gets busy," Hernandez said, "but we're always prepared to execute for any mission requirement that comes our way."

For every call to action, there's hope they'll call for live munitions, allowing Airmen to load up the chance to see their hard work never return.

Hernandez said a fully-loaded combat F-16 carries almost 3,000 pounds of munitions. It's a bundle of bad news for adversaries, carefully giftwrapped by proud ammo troops.
"Our crews are committed to their jobs," Hernandez said. "We know what the end result of our hard work can produce."

That end result draws even closer as ammo troops - again directed by Talbot back at Munitions Control - traverse closer and closer to the flightline to deliver trailers of munitions to awaiting F-16s.

An expediter, usually a weapons troop, will take over once ammo Airmen pass off their munitions - a process regularly used for the many moving parts of a flying operation.

"Weapons, expediters, crew chiefs, the Aircraft Maintenance Units - we work with them all," said Uncapher. "We all rely on each other to make the mission happen."

After all weapons and munitions are delivered, it's a job well done ... for now. It is protocol to inspect every munition that returns to the flightline before it's returned to its igloo. That is, of course, if they make it back.

"Seeing a jet come back empty ... there's really nothing in this world you can compare that to," Hernandez said. "There's a sense of relief knowing the pilot was able to do his or her job because we held up our end."