Aircraft (sortie) status board suggestions? PLEASE!

[w7sar]

I am in the process of suggesting and developing a redesign of the Wing EOC's sortie status board.  The board is at least 20 years old and served well when SAR was the primary sortie activity. 

If any of you have some photos or suggestions for what to include to cover SDIS, CD, SAR, O-flights, ARCHER, ground teams, etc., please offer your input (being careful to not violate OPSEC should it apply).

Yes, I know IMU and some spreadsheet programs would work well with a projection or LCD monitor -- but that's not my focus.  I am looking to remove all the black lines off the EOC white board and put new ones on that better reflect sortie status.  The board is updated by planning/ops/etc during SAR evals and large-scale missions.

I'd also like to learn what procedures you may have for posting/removing/numbering sorties on the board.  Is it a planning tool?  Is it only an ops tool?  Is it only a status board for active/planned sorties?  What works best when you have a large-scale operation? 

I'd love to hear what works, what you got an excellent rating on during an EVAL, etc.

Thanks VERY much in advance.  I find a plethora of opinion always helps me discover the best solution for a pending project, so any opinion/input is valued.

Jerry Wellman
Utah Wing

[MIKE]

http://www.cutteragent.com/markerboards.html

[Eclipse]

My GBD boards helped me get an Excellent during an Eval, and we've been looking to recreate them for air ops.

I did them in Photoshop, based on FEMA and other boards, but insuring it had the info we needed.

The issue I've had is that I can't get an AOBD type to give me input.

Once done, they were printed at kinkos 36x36, and laminated there.  Total was about $50 a board, they rollup into a fed tube and go with my base gear.

I've done about 4 large-scale, multi-team missions with them and haven't been wanting for a place to put info yet.

If I can get input on what they AOBD board should look like, we can put this together here, and people can get them made locally.

[Eclipse]

Board 1:

Board 2:

Aux boards (made them to KILO) to add additional teams if needed:

(They are actually printer and laminated the same size as the other team columns on the main board).

One of the things I did was to standardize on how I used color, black for most info, blue for the team status board,
and then under the times, I use green or red to show status of their check in.

Anyone, IC, USAF, AOBD, etc., can see at a glance exactly what is going on.

[Tubacap]

For air stuff, I use a giant 107 with the addition of a red box at the end to indicate overdue status for quick identification.

[Eclipse]

BTW - if anyone wants to use the above, don't use the ones you see here, they are low-res and compressed.

PM me and I will connect you with high-resolution, full-sized PDF's you can take to Kinko's.

[isuhawkeye]

Here are my notes on the subject
http://isuhawkeye.typepad.com/halbrook_associatescom/2008/10/the-status-boar.html

[KyCAP]

IMU has a status board that can be updated remotely I've been told.. Also, can be projected or displayed on a PC (yes I know - If you have power).

[Ranger75]

If you do a search in this forum for Air Operations Branch Director Checklists you'll find a similar discussion from August of last year.  Included as attachments to several of my exchanges during that discussion are a series of products I utilize when performing AOBD responsibilities.  The briefing charts are drafted in either MSWord of MSPowerpoint, and then expanded to an appropriate size for display in the ICP making use of a freeware  postermaker program.  After printing off individual sheets, they are pieced together and covered with a self adhesive clear acetate, in a similar manner to the way we prepared our tactical maps in the infantry.  The acetate will accept either water or alcohol-based marking pens.  The charts are rolled together with sectionals prepared in a similar manner, stored in a cardboard shipping tube, and strapped to the side of a multi-pocket student book bag, which also carries my other mission references, forms, and office supplies.


The information captured by the charts is self-explanatory with the possible exception of the ABRD annotation to the far right side of the Flight Operations chart.  The letters refer to Alerted, Briefed, Released, and De-briefed.  As each phase or deploying and recovering a mission sortie is completed, the respective letter is cross-hatched.  The time representing the most recent radio contact with the aircraft is reflected in the remarks column.

I hope these are of assistance.  --  Regards

[DNall]

What they were using on the massive photo mission for Ike was just a large flatscreen TV connected to a laptop with a spreadsheet. That was good enough for tracking hundreds of sorties - sar, photo, trans, in/out, media, public officials, etc.

[RiverAux]

At some point the value of the status board gets overcome by what is now the primary purpose of a CAP mission -- keeping WMIRs updated -- all other activities and personnel are only there to provide data to be pumped into the maw of WMIRs. 

Seriously though, I've noticed that we're starting to go a little nuts in the Air Ops section.  Not only do we have to keep WMIRs current, but we have to maintain a paper form107 just in case WMIRs (or the computer) goes down, and the status board ranks third in importance.  So, oftentimes the board gets forgotten or not even used in favor of the things that HAVE to be done. 

[DNall]

At some point the value of the status board gets overcome by what is now the primary purpose of a CAP mission -- keeping WMIRs updated -- all other activities and personnel are only there to provide data to be pumped into the maw of WMIRs. 

Seriously though, I've noticed that we're starting to go a little nuts in the Air Ops section.  Not only do we have to keep WMIRs current, but we have to maintain a paper form107 just in case WMIRs (or the computer) goes down, and the status board ranks third in importance.  So, oftentimes the board gets forgotten or not even used in favor of the things that HAVE to be done. 

We're all aware WIMRS sucks, including CAP-USAF. A few of us had a conversation with the AF Maj at the Ike ICP about that issue. Apparently the system the AF uses for their flying is pretty simple but with a little more data & includes what would be the 108.

We do all of that on the ground side too. In my wing....
1) we plan sorties to go & put place holders for them in WIMRS while putting the teams together. Post on status board (or in excel on a laptop if no one else needs to see it).

2) GTL fills out a 76, 109, ground sortie tracking sheet (simplified 109), and ORM.

3) I release them on the 109 (they take that with them), and in WIMRS.

4) The sortie tracking sheet stays with me, stapled to the 76 & ORM.

5) When they get back, the debriefed 109 & 108 (w/ receipts) get stapled together with the rest of the sortie paperwork I was holding, close out WIMRS, drop it in the closed pile.

6) I'm updating a point to point log sheet the whole time also, in addition to the status board. End of the day, the log sheet gets clipped to the top of the closed pile & goes to the IC.

Obviously it helps to have a MSA, but it can be done by one person. It's just time mgmt.

[Eclipse]

WMIRS is not a real-time tracking tool.

It needs to be updated at the end of the missions or sometimes the sorties depending on the Wing, but as long as its reconciled at the end of the day, that's all.

Some missions want photos attached for 1USAF, etc., but it does not have nearly the level of detail required to coordinate a real-time event with multiple teams in the field.

Mostly WMIRS is used for accounting for the money spent.

[RiverAux]

It needs to be updated at the end of the missions or sometimes the sorties depending on the Wing, but as long as its reconciled at the end of the day, that's all.

Wrong!  In general we can't launch a sortie until it is in WMIRs and is green. 

[isuhawkeye]

How do you manage working out of bases that do not have internet access??

[Eclipse]

It needs to be updated at the end of the missions or sometimes the sorties depending on the Wing, but as long as its reconciled at the end of the day, that's all.

Wrong!  In general we can't launch a sortie until it is in WMIRs and is green. 

Not worth arguing about, but again, local vs. national reality.

How do you manage working out of bases that do not have internet access??

An excellent point.

[DNall]

You don't work out of mission bases w/o internet. Worst case, you bring in a satellite internet system run off a generator (like FEMA just bought for the wing - sweet). For the most part we run a couple aircards off routers & we're in business.

We're in the same boat that sorties have to be in & green, and have to be closed out in a timely manner after. NOC & CAP-USAF were riding our butts about that. The aforementioned AF Maj was trying to tell them be patient cause there's new folks in working WIMRS every couple days, not the same one fully trained person for the whole mission. They also freaked about putting in place holder sorties the night before. in other words, they (CAP & AF) were sitting back at the NOC watching play-by-play on WIMRS expecting it to be real-time, and were not happy when it was anything other then that.

[KyCAP]

Like FEMA just bought for the Wing?  Serious or tongue in cheek?  Do tell and sign me up.

[RiverAux]

DNALL is correct -- I'm sure that the NOC isn't just telling my wing and his to wait till the sortie is green.

Keep in mind that WMIRs assigns ground and air sortie numbers one after the other (sortie 1 might be air, sortie 2 might be ground and then sortie 3 might be air, etc.) and unless your ground and air ops people are working very closely with each other, there is a chance that your sortie number assignments are going to get seriously out of whack if you aren't using WMIRs to do it.  (At least that was how it was the last time I ran air ops).

Now, to get back closer to the topic of the thread, I would like to a way for WMIRs to automatically generate a status board display for open sorties that could be kept open on screen or accessed by the IC/OSC at any time.  Sure, there is some benefit to having a big board on the wall with that info, but keeping the number of times info is written down to a minimum is just a much more effective use of time. 

[KyCAP]

The IMU does this and drives the sortie data into WMIRS.   We're experimenting with this now in KY Wing.

I just pushed my first two sorties from the WMU into WMIRS last night.   Automagic, and my Form 99 is being tracked on-line at the moment.

There is also a "situational awareness" mode in the IMU that rotates between screens for a status board.. like NEXRAD, open requests, sorties, etc every 30 seconds.  Pretty handy dandy.