Photo By Senior Airman Isaac Johnson | U.S. Air Force Col. Jacob Trigler, 354th Operations Group (OG) commander passes the...... read more read more
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Last week the 354th Fighter Wing made history when it stood up the 354th Operations Group, Detachment 4 and named Lt. Col. Russell Reese its commander.
Det. 4 is the beginning of what will eventually become a range squadron here on Eielson.
“This is the very first range organization in the wing,” said Col. Jacob Trigler, 354th Operations Group commander. “Det. 4 will oversee the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, which is the largest over-land range in the Department of Defense, and unlike most other ranges, we are actually expanding the range.”
Before Friday, everything related to the JPARC had been coordinated by the range division of the 353rd Combat Training Squadron.
“All of the range activities that the Air Force sponsors on the JPARC were run by the range division which consisted of about 10 to 15 people here at the CTS,” said Reese. “With CTS in charge of RED FLAG-Alaska and the range, it caused our attention to be divided between the two depending on the season. With the standup of Det. 4, we’ll be able to avoid that.”
With the initial arrival of the Air Force’s newest fifth-generation fighter aircraft scheduled to take place in the next year, Det. 4 will be integral in the training of these pilots.
“We’re trying to build a fifth-gen center of excellence here at Eielson,” said Trigler. “With the two F-35 squadrons we’re going to have here and the two F-22 squadrons we have down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richarson, we’ll have the largest concentration of fifth-generation fighters anywhere in the world within 300 miles of each other. The training they need is all going to happen on this range.”
Along with providing training assistance to the world’s largest contingent of fifth-generation fighters, Det. 4 will lead the way when it comes to range modernization.
“As part of CTS we couldn’t put all of our efforts toward the modernization of the JPARC,” said Reese, “With the standup of Det. 4, we’ll be able to put more efforts into modernizing the range faster as well as allowing increased training capabilities for the entire DoD.”
| Date Taken: | 05.07.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 06.07.2019 16:52 |
| Story ID: | 326082 |
| Location: | EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, AK, US |
| Web Views: | 98 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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