AFCEC manages Air Force transition to airfield damage repair

  • Published
  • By Jess Echerri
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Readiness Directorate is training other Airmen who will, in turn, train their peers on new methods and standards for repairing runways.

Eight students from four bases around the Air Force completed the first of four airfield damage repair, or ADR, mobile training team classes July 17. The mobile training team will train Airmen at bases across the Air Force.

"As part of a four-phased training ADR program, AFCEC is initiating a mobile training program to reach out and provide training to civil engineering command and control around the world," said Scott Eddy, AFCEC Expeditionary Training Development subject matter expert.

The goal of the program is threefold, Eddy said. The first goal is to spread the word on the paradigm shift during the transition from rapid runway repair to modernized ADR. The second goal being, as equipment and material is fielded and the need for a knowledgeable command and control center remains paramount, for this MTT to fill the void until a permanent and all inclusive training program is in place. The last goal is to have each base align their home station training program with the new and diverse ADR requirements that may differ from the traditional tasks associated with the civil engineering career fields.

"The complexity of ADR and the number of moving parts highlights the need for a knowledgeable, confident and interactive command and control element, without which airfield recovery is not attainable in the timeframe needed to launch and recover aircraft," Eddy said.

ADR guidelines are the new baseline for airfield recovery capabilities for all Air Force civil engineers. The new program is a response to the Air Force's changing mission worldwide, said Lance Filler, AFCEC ADR modernization team lead and one of the class instructors.

"We have new threats so we have to have a new response posture," Filler said. "We must be able to fly different types of aircraft and do so more sustainably than RRR allows."

Filler and Eddy taught the MTT class along with Scott Smith. The three instructors have been working to develop the ADR program that began in 2007. Now that the program is ready to be transitioned across the Air Force, the MTT will train Airmen over the next 18 months by holding two-day classes to familiarize them with the new tactics, techniques and procedures.

By the end of the class, the new instructors will be "fluent in ADR" and be able to speak to it without a script, Eddy said.

"We all had different skill sets going in there," said Master Sgt. Jacob McClain, MTT student and infrastructure section chief at the 435th Construction and Training Squadron, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "The instructors' flexibility allowed them to adapt the course to what we needed to learn."

ADR improves on the RRR standard of completing four crater repairs in eight hours to completing up to 126 small crater repairs in six-and-a-half hours under perfect conditions. Variables such as weather, manning and protective posture will potentially add time to completion, Filler said.

"The C2 mindset is a change that needed to happen," said Tech. Sgt. John Wernegreen, an MTT student from the 435th CTS at Ramstein. "The upper leadership needs to trust their people to make more decisions."

Students practiced the new ADR principles using table-top models. Using models in place of Airmen, vehicles, equipment and materials, the instructors were able to give the MTT class a better visual of how a typical repair with several small craters would run. The students were given different scenarios to demonstrate the flexibility of the program, allowing each team to make C2 decisions for its own situations.

The new MTT instructors will begin classes immediately. For more information about the MTT and ADR, contact the AFCEC reachback center at afcec.rbc@us.af.mil or 850-283-6995.