Weapons Airmen: A key part of the Air Force mission Published Oct. 27, 2008 By 52nd Maintenance Group SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany -- If you've heard the saying "without weapons, it's just another airline," then you might have spent some time around a weapons loader. These words reflect what every weapons loader feels - that they have the best job in the U.S. Air Force. There are many positions within the career field including weapons loaders, armament backshop maintenance specialists, load evaluators and quality assurance inspectors, but their mission is simple - load bombs on the planes so the aircrew can drop bombs on target. It's a career field that is designed to grow future leaders from technical training graduates to wing weapons managers. Weapons crews work as teams, and from the day an apprentice arrives at their first duty station, they are trained to manage something. Whether it's a tool kit or weapon-loading equipment, the mission could fail without their part of the puzzle. The load crew chief, usually a Senior Airman, Staff or Technical Sergeant, is an important role and the next step in a weapons career where responsibility grows. An important aspect of this job includes preparing the crew for their monthly proficiency training. Monthly proficiency training allows evaluators to see how well the team can load inert munitions and is vital to a safe deployment atmosphere. This ensures they get it right when they are deployed and loading live 2,000 pound bombs. The armament airmen, weapons expeditors, QA inspectors and weapons standardization crews are also a vital part of mission success. Without armament personnel, the load crews would not have quality equipment to carry out the task of hanging weapons on the aircraft. Expeditors make sure the crews have everything required to do their jobs, and QA and WSS ensure the crews are performing safe and reliable maintenance and loading operations. Weapons section supervision ties all the components together to make a cohesive team to support any task the Air Force needs. Recognizing our Airmen is a tenet of the Air Force, and recently, three load crews from the 22nd, 23rd and 81st Aircraft Maintenance Units competed in a quarterly load competition where load crews compete against one another to determine which crew is the best for that quarter. These load competitions give bragging rights to the winners and elevate esprit de corps amongst all the crews. The next competition will take place in December, so come out and watch these warriors in action. The weapons career field is a great one that drives the 52nd Fighter Wing motto of seek, attack, destroy. Without Saber weapons Airmen, such a mission would not be possible.