Photo By Tech. Sgt. Christian Jadot | An mobility team from Travis Air Force Base takes measurements of the prototype ACE...... read more read more
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Personnel from the 144th Fighter Wing continue with the Air Force testing and validation process for the prototype Agile Combat Employment trailer at the Fresno Air National Guard Base, California, June 25, 2022.
From a humble idea on how to improve the 144th Fighter Wing, to the working prototype is being evaluated for operational use, it has taken over four years to get this far.
“The trailer start out literally on a bar napkin, with Sgt. Steht and Sgt. Snyder thinking about the ways the Air Force could fight the new fight,” said Capt. Jason Sassano,144th Maintenance Group. “We can literally set up mobile facility to take our aircraft on the road and quickly deploy in and out of a facility, and turn jets anywhere in the world.”
The idea for the trailer came about during a routine assignment.
“Me and Cory Snyder were out on a TDY, a road trip for an airshow, we came up with the idea of how we could [deploy] faster,” said Tech. Sgt. Matthew Steht, 144th Maintenance Group. “So it started off as just a basic Maintenance Recovery Team trailer, and little by little, the ACE concept really started to take part, and it was embraced by our culture here in the Fighter Wing. So it slowly grew from a bumper pull trailer to the 83 foot semi truck we see now.”
The Air Force is evaluating the trailer for operational use and deployments.
“ We are working with the Nellis test center,” said Staff Sgt. Nick Frost, 144th Maintenance Group. “Basically they are analyzing the tear down and set up of the ACE trailer. To see the general time it takes for be ready for it to be usable.”
Frost volunteered to help with the tests and got his first hands on the day of the evaluation.
“It is very easy to learn,” said Frost. “I have only been working with it for a couple of hours, and we already have the set up and teardown down.”
With the goal set of 30 minutes for a set up or tear down, the team managed to get it under 10 minutes.
“For myself it’s been a major win, because I’ve even blown my own expectations out,” said Steht. “I never thought eight minutes would actually ever come. The process is so simple, people actually grab the concept and make it work.”
The 144th Fighter Wing's goal for the trailer is to bring down the rapid deployment times for Fighter Wings across the Air Force.
“We really appreciate the support from our unit, and that goes beyond our unit to California State Headquarters they’ve been supporting us we really appreciate that” said Sassano. “It takes a lot of moving pieces to get this thing to work.”
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 08.06.2022 12:54 |
| Story ID: | 424461 |
| Location: | CA, US |
| Web Views: | 39 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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