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Air Force civil engineer wartime operations just got a major boost with the first of four new Rapid Airfield Damage Recovery – or RADR (“raider”) – training locations in the continental United States. These additional sites will deliver the specialized war-winning capability designed by experts from the Air Force Civil Engineer Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
(MSgt Broc French, Civil Engineer Contingency Training Program Manager, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, Tyndall AFB) “We’re out here in New London, North Carolina at the 145th Regional Training site executing R-D-R operations as part of the RADR process.”
(MSgt Ty Helms, 145th Airlift Wing Regional Training Site Instructor, North Carolina Air National Guard) “In those nine classes that we’re gonna be offering here, that’s 297 open seats for engineers to come train and ready to go downrange and accomplish a very important mission.”
Until now, Tyndall’s Silver Flag exercise site was the only place in the continental United States where Airmen could get this RADR training. The only two other locations were Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
(Maj Khary Davis, Expeditionary Engineering Division Chief, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, Tyndall AFB ) “What we’re looking to do is provide training sites so that any engineer in ‘CONUS’ can convoy to a site and get the training that they need when they need it. So these are the first engineers that are experiencing this outside of Tyndall, Det 1, here in CONUS and it’s going remarkable so we know that this 5-day course is really achieving the goals that we had set.”
The well-orchestrated ‘crater repair’ RADR process is carried out like an assembly-line. The steps are: debris removal, upheaval marking, pavement cutting, pavement breaking and excavation, backfilling, and capping. The additional training sites for this unique process means a much larger team of civil engineer Airmen from various career fields will now be ready and able to quickly get airfields back in the fight following a major airfield attack.
(SSgt Jerome Hunter, Electrical Power Production Craftsman, Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota) “For me personally as Power Pro, it’s been going great! A lot of us haven’t done this before but this is great experience for some of the younger guys and some of us older guys to get in the equipment and get some stick time.”
(A1C Jeremy Grigoleit-Winter, Electrical Power Production Apprentice, Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri) “I’ve been in the Air Force for roughly 9 months and coming here to this training not knowing a single thing about running equipment, or patching holes, marking—none of that, I’ve never done this before. Coming here, day 5, I feel competent with my team that we could knock it out: no problems!”
Now that the RADR training course is running in North Carolina, the AFCEC team is working on the next location to come on-line at the Expeditionary Combat Support Training Certification Center at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia. Two additional locations are planned for 2022 in Arkansas and North Dakota.
(MSgt French) “To add these additional locations, this is just a lot of hard work finally paying off and it’s great to see a plan come together.”
For the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, I’m Brian Goddin.
| Date Taken: | 10.29.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.30.2021 09:36 |
| Category: | Video Productions |
| Video ID: | 821338 |
| VIRIN: | 211109-F-EG306-003 |
| Filename: | DOD_108677660 |
| Length: | 00:02:30 |
| Location: | NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Downloads: | 18 |
| High-Res. Downloads: | 18 |
This work, RADR NC 'Production' Adaptation of: "FOUR NEW RADR TRAINING SITES WILL MAKE ACCESS TO THE WAR-WINNING CAPABILITY EASIER AND MORE CONVENIENT FOR AIRMEN ENGINEERS (2021)", by John Goddin, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
