"Our job is to get the crews what they need, train them, qualify them, and get them out to the fight," says Lt. Col. David Kasberg, the commander of the 48th Airlift Squadron at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas. As the C-130J schoolhouse, this recently reactivated squadron, whose legacy dates back to World War II, will train every active-duty Air Force and Air National Guard crew that will fly the Super Hercules. An important part of the curriculum at Hercules University was developed during Procedures Development and Evaluation, an intense, monthlong learning laboratory held at Little Rock this past winter. PD&E was designed to validate the tactics, techniques, and procedures C-130J crews will use. "Most pilots can stick and rudder a C-130," says Lt. Col. Chris Hair, the chief of Air Mobility Command's Operations Directorate. "PD&E is about learning to employ the C-130J as a weapons system."
The 48th had trained instructors, and PD&E produced a more in-depth knowledge of what the unit needed to teach. The one asset the training unit didn't have was its own aircraft. After flying borrowed aircraft since the squadron stood up in late 2003, the first C-130J for the 48th was formally accepted in ceremonies at the base on 16 April. J-School is now in session.
Getting There Is Half The Fun
Air Education and Training Command officials made the decision in 2003 to have the 314th Airlift Wing at Little Rock set up a separate squadron to train C-130J crews. Both the 53rd and 62nd Airlift Squadrons fly C-130Es, and the original plan was to incorporate J model training with the two existing C-130 training squadrons.
"I found out about the assignment last August," notes Kasberg. "I moved here from Germany in September. Two months later, we stood up the squadron. We went from having no aircraft, no permanently assigned people, and no budget to having an initial instructor cadre trained in just over two months. Then we had to find a building to operate out of, move in, and get aircraft. This assignment could not have been more challenging."
By late winter, the squadron had five pilots who had previously qualified on the C-130J. "Those pilots formed our primary instructors," says Kasberg. "They trained the trainers, basically." A majority of the squadron aircrew personnel came over from the C-130E and have crossed the technological chasm between a 1960s-vintage aircraft and the modern C-130J. The squadron also included three pilots and three loadmasters with no previous C-130 experience—they transitioned from the C-17.
"It is a good thing to get a non-C-130 group in here," notes Kasberg. "The things the Air Force is doing on the C-17—overwater missions without a navigator, Category II [bad weather] instrument landing approaches, using a mission computer—all of that is good experience for the rest of us. That group also has some fresh ideas about how to use the C-130J."
The squadron began operations using WC-130Js borrowed from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. Using loaned aircraft has worked, but it has resulted in some minor spare parts issues—parts for the aircraft in Little Rock have to be shipped from Mississippi.
"We appreciate the loaners, but having our own aircraft and our own parts would solve some availability issues. We are managing pretty well, though," notes Kasberg.
The squadron is trying to be aggressive in its approach to training to get its crews qualified quickly. For example, they are scheduling three sorties per day. "Despite being new to this aircraft, our maintenance crews have done a very good job for us," says Kasberg. "We were not fully manned for a three-flight day in the early spring, and for a 0700 takeoff, maintainers had to be here at three or four in the morning. After a landing at midnight, they remain here after the students and instructors leave."
The loaned aircraft are also short-fuselage J models, and the 48th will be training on aircraft that have a fuselage that is fifteen feet longer. "The long- and short-fuselage C130Js have some subtle differences that will affect how we train," notes Kasberg.
The 48th Airlift Squadron will receive seven aircraft over the next two years, including two this summer. Eventually, the unit will have fifteen assigned C-130Js. Ultimately, the squadron will have approximately thirty pilots and twenty-five loadmasters.
To accommodate the new squadron and new aircraft, construction projects totaling nearly $51 million have changed the landscape at Little Rock. Construction on a new training facility for C-130E, H, and J model maintainers is under way and is expected to be completed in early 2005. A new engine and propeller storage facility opens this year. A new hangar will fully enclose two of the squadron's aircraft.
The new 40,000-square-foot C-130J simulator building encloses two motion-based weapon system trainers and two smaller stationary trainers, as well as classrooms, a scheduling office, student publications library, and a student learning center. Run by Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training and Support Company and known as the C-130J Maintenance and Aircrew Training System, or JMATS, the facility is used for basic aircraft qualification and initial and refresher cockpit resource management training, instrument refresher courses, and instructor preparatory courses. The facility opened for business in early March.
Learning What To Train
"We ran up against a deadline because the training courseware and the simulator were delivered on 1 March," says Hair. "How does an instructor teach a procedure if it has never been done? How is the courseware validated? That's what we tried to accomplish during the latest phase of PD&E. Ultimately, we want to give the combat commander a crew that brings something to the table—something that a commander can use in the fight."
The overarching objective of PD&E is to describe a way forward to operational capability with the C-130J. The group will provide the US C-130J community with the written policies and procedures necessary to support ongoing test and evaluation, develop training, and refine operational concepts. A secondary purpose is to evaluate, develop, and verify corrections and work-arounds for any deficiencies identified during the flight tests and quantify them—taking accumulated wisdom and making sure it is written down.
In fall 2002, AMC collected all of the procedures that governed flying legacy Hercules aircraft, the written reports from the Royal Air Force detailing that service's C-130J operational experience, as well as C-17 operational procedures.
"We locked all the subject matter experts in a room and told them to write a procedure for, say, single-ship night airdrop and not come out until they had a procedure everyone agreed on," notes Hair. "Then we went back and did the same thing for formation drops. At the end of this, we had a stack of new, but unproven, procedures that combined the old way of working a Herc with new things like a head-up display and a mission computer."
Adds Maj. Sean Bordenave, the project officer and a pilot with AMC's Operations Modernization Division: "After the group developed a procedure, they flew it in the simulator to see if it would work. They spent almost fifty hours in the sim. From an aircrew perspective, though, we never believe anything until we experience it firsthand."
Single-ship mission employment capabilities and procedures were evaluated in flights hosted last fall by the 143rd Airlift Wing, the Air National Guard unit based at Quonset State Airport near Providence, Rhode Island. Specifically, the test team evaluated low-level daylight and night-vision goggle operations, time-control functions, airdrops, and NVG airland. The flights provided an opportunity to evaluate aircraft systems during missions and valuable insight into tactical training.
The next phase, held at Little Rock in February 2004, tested formation flying during the day and night using what one pilot called a crawl, walk,run approach. Five different C130J units, includ-ing ANG units from California, Rhode Island, and Maryland, the Air Force Reserve Command unit from Keesler, and the host 48th Airlift Squadron, conducted the tests using seven aircraft. The RAF, which has been using its C-130J operationally for several years, sent advisors as well.
"The whole process was done on a shoestring budget," observes Hair. "The group wants to get out of the mode of flying around the flagpole and go and do something with their Js. We want to move forward. The Guard and Reserve guys picked up their own tab because they are interested and excited about the C-130J. None of this was a funded effort."
The first of the three weeks of testing consisted of flying four-hour low-level day formation flights and going through airdrop procedures down to 300-foot altitudes. The second week consisted of formation flights using the aircraft's coordinated aircraft positioning station keeping equipment, or CAP SKE, and formation airdrop procedures. The final week consisted of NVG visual formation and airdrop procedures working down to low altitudes.
"We answered some very detailed questions mostly through trial and error and experience," says Bordenave. "No one did any freelancing. If someone had developed a technique or had a rule of thumb, we listened to him. If we tested the suggestion and it worked, we included it in the procedure. We faced a lot of unknowns, but a lot of excellent solutions came out of the testing, particularly in the areas of CAP SKE."
The CAP SKE system in the C-130J is designed to allow the pilot to fly virtually hands-off during formation flights. The system works well. "However, in turns, the system is too aggressive for how we plan to employ the aircraft flying in formation in weather," notes Bordenave. "The new Block 5.4 computer software that will be installed in the J fleet this year will fix that. We were able to provide direct, instant feedback to this upgrade process.
"We had the Total Force experts from the Guard, Reserve, AMC, Lockheed Martin, AETC, and even the RAF during PD&E," Bordenave adds. "We need to use the automation inherent in the aircraft to our advantage. With that much brainpower in one room, we capitalized on what we were doing. People have seen an E or an H and think the J is just another Hercules. They don't see its real capability."
The team prepared a final report and worked closely with the groups developing the checklists and publications to incorporate the knowledge gained during PD&E. "Then we will send them out as the operating instructions for the weapon system," says Hair.
The final phase of PD&E will involve developing procedures for heavy equipment airdrops from the C-130J and maximizing interoperability between the C-130J and the legacy C-130E and H models. "We will be evaluating procedures to find commonality between the two airframes to better employ both aircraft to the maximum extent possible," concludes Bordenave. "We want to make it easier for crews to employ the C-130J in combat."
Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.
