Unit Resources and Call Up Lists

[A.Member]

Curious to see how other Wings address the following:

ES Call Up Lists:   How does your Wing maintain a comprehensive call up list for each unit?  For example, NOC calls your ES contact for a mission.  The IC/Wing ES Officer must reach out to various units for availability.  The reference their call up list.  So, how/what form does that list take?  Is it just a document everyone has?  Is it listed on a shared webpage? How is it maintained, etc.

Unit Resources:  We have all "on the book" hard resources listed in ORMS.  However, there is not an easy, comprehensive view of assets by unit.  How does your Wing handle this?  Do you care?  Again, if called to a mission, how does the ES officer know which unit to call (ex if an aircraft is needed, which unit to call)?

These questions stem from the idea that a comprehensive list that includes both ES resources and contacts in one view that could be filtered in various ways would be very helpful to an IC/ES Officer among others.  Ex. a mission request comes in for an ELT in a remote area.  A quick reference for the ES contact could identify the nearest geographic unit with an aircraft assigned and provide the call down info for that unit, all in an easy one stop location.   


Much of the info needed already exists in various places with National.  As a result, it would seem to be an easy win for National to pull this info together in eServices; ideally it could be sliced, diced, and drilled down as needed.

[Eclipse]

Wing-wide paging and call-up.

Having a unit near the mission doesn't mean the members are involved in ES,
live near the unit, or are even around.

Also, it's not usually an ESO making the calls, but an IC.

Never had any issues looking for equipment.

[Storm Chaser]

We have designated group and unit alerting officers, who are aware of the resources available in their area. In addition to the Resources Report available in Ops Quals and ES database available in our wing website, we also require units to submit a more concise quarterly Alert/Resources Report with available resources and current location of equipment. We also exercise alerting procedures periodically.

[JeffDG]

In the middle of developing a system to help with this.

It's in Phase III of a 5 Phase project right now.  The system does E-mail, text and voice alerting to phone numbers pulled out of eServices based upon duty positions and/or ES Qualifications

Phase I:  Ability to send to selected Duty Positions based on a web-form with Text-to-Speech for voice calls
Phase II:  Add ES qualifications to the list for receiving alerts

Basically, you have a list of Duty Positions/ES Quals, you select which (multiple OK, it de-duplicates) like Unit Commander, Deputy Commander, ES Officer, Alerting Officer, IC, MP, MO, GTL, GTM, etc., then check off which units you want to send to (again, one or many), with all wing units (including Wing and Group HQs) listed, type your message and how you want it delivered (e-mail, SMS text, Voice), and click "Send" and off it goes.

Phase III:  Integrated Response Capability.  So the "Voice" alert will say "Press 1 if you are able to respond to this mission" with near real-time feedback to the person initiating the alert.  will also include options to respond via SMS and e-mail, again with all responses flowing back to the person initiating the alert. (Target, Christmas)

Phase IV:  Interactive Voice Response Send:  A dial-in number where authorized personnel (Commanders, Deputy Commanders, ESOs, UAOs, ICs) can dial in and send voice alerts in similar fashion to the web form, but can do it entirely disconnected from the network (Target:  January 31)

Phase V:  Alerts with Voice Conferences:  Building on the Phase III "Press 1 to indicate you are available" there will be a "Press 2 to join a conference call for this mission" (Target:  End of February)

[JeffDG]

Wing-wide paging and call-up.

Having a unit near the mission doesn't mean the members are involved in ES,
live near the unit, or are even around.

Also, it's not usually an ESO making the calls, but an IC.

Never had any issues looking for equipment.

Wing DOS is frequently an IC him/herself...but the DOS is usually the top of the AFRCC call list, and if it's anything like our wing, his first job is to find a local-IC to get the mission to.

In terms of equipment, the local resources know where the gear is.  If you call pilots in the area, they know where the plane is parked.  Comms folks know where the radios are.

That said, I'd love to have a CAPWATCH-ish download for ORMS that I could get into a database to slice and dice.

[Storm Chaser]

Each wing is supposed to have wing alerting officers (WAO), who must also be ICs IAW CAPR 60-3, Para. 1-5.b(1)(a). In our wing, we rotate these every week. When the duty WAO gets the call from AFRCC, he/she then tries to get an IC in the area or, if unable, takes over the mission. We also have an alert system in place in which AFRCC notifications go to every IC in the wing through text and e-mail. When the WAO makes the call, the prospective IC already have the basic mission information.

[Eclipse]

Wing DOS is frequently an IC him/herself...but the DOS is usually the top of the AFRCC call list, and if it's anything like our wing, his first job is to find a local-IC to get the mission to.

We rotate alert officers by month, all are ICs, until deep into the list where the OPS and Command staff are included.

He sends a REDCAP email / SMS blast looking for resources (assuming it's not in his backyard and he calls people direct.

It would be very interesting to know how many wings could actually call a unit CC or alert officer and expect to
have a mission done without outside help, nor necessarily having an airplane at a given airport means
the unit is mission-ready, or that the members live in proximity.

Many of our most active ES people are assigned to Group or Wing, and/or live 90 minutes+ from their unit of assignment,
or no where near a plane.  I would imagine that's relatively typical.

[Storm Chaser]

It would be very interesting to know how many wings could actually call a unit CC or alert officer and expect to have a mission done without outside help...

Depending on the mission, we have 3-4 units in my AOR that meet that criteria.

[JeffDG]

It would be very interesting to know how many wings could actually call a unit CC or alert officer and expect to
have a mission done without outside help, nor necessarily having an airplane at a given airport means
the unit is mission-ready, or that the members live in proximity.

I know in my wing we have 3-4 units at least that have the capability to field an entire mission, from IC down to MP/MO/MS to GTL/GTM/UDF.

That said, as an IC myself, I see "units" as a convenient shorthand to resource locations.  The IC derives his authority on a mission from the Wing Commander (or higher on bigger missions), and as such is not constrained by who is in a particular squadron.  If I get responses from folks from 3 different units for a ground-team, then here's your tasking. 

I've had the discussion with some unit commanders who claim that we need to go through them to task their people.  That consent is given when the unit commander signed off on their GTM/UDF/MS/MP/other ES qualification.  Now, I try to keep commanders informed, but the resources are CAPs, not Podunk Composite Squadron's.

[JeffDG]

Many of our most active ES people are assigned to Group or Wing, and/or live 90 minutes+ from their unit of assignment,
or no where near a plane.  I would imagine that's relatively typical.

You just made me think of a "Phase VI" for my alerting system...we have addresses for all the members, and locations of airports and unit locations...Google Maps has an API where I can get driving directions (with travel times including traffic), I will need to add an option of "Alert all resources within x minutes driving time of Unit/Airport"  Hell, I could generate the map and attach it to the e-mail alert message with "Assemble here..."

[Майор Хаткевич]

Wing DOS is frequently an IC him/herself...but the DOS is usually the top of the AFRCC call list, and if it's anything like our wing, his first job is to find a local-IC to get the mission to.

We rotate alert officers by month, all are ICs, until deep into the list where the OPS and Command staff are included.

He sends a REDCAP email / SMS blast looking for resources (assuming it's not in his backyard and he calls people direct.

It would be very interesting to know how many wings could actually call a unit CC or alert officer and expect to
have a mission done without outside help, nor necessarily having an airplane at a given airport means
the unit is mission-ready, or that the members live in proximity.

Many of our most active ES people are assigned to Group or Wing, and/or live 90 minutes+ from their unit of assignment,
or no where near a plane.  I would imagine that's relatively typical.

Well, at least locally the situation is "resolved" after the call outs by email/text with whole teams responding...at least in theory.


Seems to work out well when it comes up, which isn't much these days.

[A.Member]

In the middle of developing a system to help with this.

It's in Phase III of a 5 Phase project right now.  The system does E-mail, text and voice alerting to phone numbers pulled out of eServices based upon duty positions and/or ES Qualifications

Phase I:  Ability to send to selected Duty Positions based on a web-form with Text-to-Speech for voice calls
Phase II:  Add ES qualifications to the list for receiving alerts

Basically, you have a list of Duty Positions/ES Quals, you select which (multiple OK, it de-duplicates) like Unit Commander, Deputy Commander, ES Officer, Alerting Officer, IC, MP, MO, GTL, GTM, etc., then check off which units you want to send to (again, one or many), with all wing units (including Wing and Group HQs) listed, type your message and how you want it delivered (e-mail, SMS text, Voice), and click "Send" and off it goes.

Phase III:  Integrated Response Capability.  So the "Voice" alert will say "Press 1 if you are able to respond to this mission" with near real-time feedback to the person initiating the alert.  will also include options to respond via SMS and e-mail, again with all responses flowing back to the person initiating the alert. (Target, Christmas)

Phase IV:  Interactive Voice Response Send:  A dial-in number where authorized personnel (Commanders, Deputy Commanders, ESOs, UAOs, ICs) can dial in and send voice alerts in similar fashion to the web form, but can do it entirely disconnected from the network (Target:  January 31)

Phase V:  Alerts with Voice Conferences:  Building on the Phase III "Press 1 to indicate you are available" there will be a "Press 2 to join a conference call for this mission" (Target:  End of February)

This sounds very much inline with what I was thinking...but perhaps a bit more robust.  Nice job.