Photo By Senior Airman Cassandra Whitman | U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Lisa Rogers, a 354th Operations Support Squadron...... read more read more
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Through wind, rain, sleet, snow, fog and storms, weather Airmen are an essential part to any mission. RED FLAG-Alaska, is no exception to the rule, as pilots depend on the accuracy of weather predictions for the safety of their jets and themselves.
Senior Airman Drew Davies, a weather forecaster assigned to the 35th Operations Support Squadron out of Misawa Air Base, Japan, is temporarily deployed to Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska to support the mission of RF-A 16-3.
Davies’ role includes presenting weather information to pilots to ensure their safety while in the air.
“We interpret a bunch of data and put it in a powerpoint presentation,” said Davies. “The pilots can take a look at where they will be flying and see if any hazards, clouds or tough weather will be happening. This way, they can avoid the weather or determine if it isn’t a big deal and carry-on and accomplish their mission.”
RF-A brings many new perspectives and challenges to Davies and other members of the weather team.
“Coming into a new area to forecast can be difficult,” said Davies. “You have to accurately forecast upcoming weather events, and local weather patterns can take a while to get used to.”
Joining a deployed environment such as RF-A expands areas of learning for Airmen of any rank. It provides optimum training environments for all participants and allows deployed personnel from all over the world to take knowledge back to their home stations.
This isn’t Davies’ first rodeo, and knowledge he gained at previous RF-As helped him be more prepared this time around.
“It’s a different mission,” said Davies. “When you’re at your home station, you do more of the everyday little tasks, whereas here, it’s mission-focused and my only concern is with the operating areas and where the aircraft are flying.”
Tech. Sgt. Robert Frost, the 354th Operations Support Squadron NCO in charge of mission integrative functions, said his team is also in contact with Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson’s weather flight.
“We keep in touch with JBER because we have aircraft flying up from there as well,” said Frost. “Whether by phone or email, communication with them picks-up when the weather is bad. Regardless, we keep up-to-date on their weather as well.”
The 354th OSS weather flight is essential for the weather observation aspect of RF-A missions. They relay the weather conditions they visually see to the weather personnel operating over in the 353rd Combat Training Squadron.
“We have two sensors at each end of the runway,” said Frost. “The readings pop-up on our computer and if anything significant shows up we relay the information.”
The safety of pilots is the number one priority, Davies explained. Making sure pilots won’t fly into something that may hurt them or the aircraft, is essential to making RF-A run smoothly.
| Date Taken: | 08.11.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.16.2016 17:34 |
| Story ID: | 207331 |
| Location: | EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, AK, US |
| Web Views: | 38 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Weathering the days of RF-A 16-3, by SrA Cassandra Whitman, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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