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606th ACS head downrange

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Tammie Moore
  • 52nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany --  Airmen with the 606th Air Control Squadron have packed their bags and headed out to support overseas contingency operations in their own unique way.

There are five active-duty Air Control Squadrons in the Air Force. Each of these squadrons are self-contained mobile combat units formed of Airmen from more than 25 specialties working together to provide a bird's eye view of situations as they unfold on the ground.

During this deployment the Airmen will not only be responsible for providing command and control capabilities at a base in Southwest Asia, but some will also travel into Afghanistan where they will assume the air control mission from Coalition forces.

As part of this turnover the Airmen will set up radar and communications circuits with initial operating capability scheduled to be on line this summer. This equipment will work in conjunction with the Battlespace, Command and Control Center in Southwest Asia which will receive, handle and distribute information from Afghanistan.

The Airmen conducted extensive hands-on training with the new BC3 unit here before they packed it up for the deployment. The company that created the system sent trainers to Spangdahlem to conduct a BC3 certification course. Airman 1st Class Wes Miller, 606th ACS operator, has been certified as a BC3 trainer.

"I am currently in the process of doing that right now," he said. "We have been running simulations based of the information we have received from what is happening in Afghanistan, learning to adjust and respond to anything that might happen."

After arriving in Afghanistan and completing turnover with the Coalition Forces, Airman Miller will redeploy to the Southwest Asia continue training and certifying Airmen on the BC3 as needed when they arrive in theater.

"We are learning a lot of things in a short amount of time," he said. "So we are going to have to be on top of our game."

The information gained through the BC3 will provide the Combined Air and Space Operations Center with real-time, detailed data of anything happening in the sky.

"Being ground radar, we are the bare bones of the theater," said Airman 1st Class Brandon Proctor, 606th ACS ground radar systems apprentice. "We provide the feed for everyone else to do their work. We will have the only long-range radar in Afghanistan."

In an ACS, everyone's specialty is tied together to make the mission flow smoothly.

"Doing work downrange is a different experience," Airman Proctor said. "It is real life -- you have to know what you are doing."

The 606th ACS Airmen are ready for their deployment and the opportunity to use the BC3 in the field.

"We are looking forward to it," Airman Miller said. "It is going to make it easier for us to do our jobs. I know the squadron is feeling very confident about our mission."
The BC3 brings a team of air controllers with different specialties into one facility. In the past they were located in separate modules and had to communicate with one another via radios.

"We have an operations room that has multiple screens set up and we have multiple positions within the room we are each responsible for," Airman Miller said. "It makes communication a lot quicker."

The new technology in the BC3 makes Airman Miller's job of detecting and tracking targets easier as well.

"The radar is the same, so the picture itself has not changed; however, the picture is much clearer," he said. "The old one was black and white -- this one has multiple colors and better background images. You can see mountains, so you can get better judgments on altitude. You can make decisions quicker because it gives you the information quicker than the old system did."
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