AF EVAL: Who scored Outstanding in Air Ops??

[Woodstock]

I'm looking to benchmark any wings out there who've received an Outstanding in Air Ops in a recent AF EVAL.  What tools or procedures did you use that set you apart?

[davidsinn]

INWG scored outstanding on flight line last year. We had a good supervisor and a group of good SM's and some good cadets alongside. Nothing really special happened we just did our jobs in spite of the 120 degree heat caused by the blacktop.

[CadetProgramGuy]

When I was FLS 2 years ago, I got an outstanding on the Flight Line as well.

We went over the top when spray planes were doing ops on the field and we found out what chemicals they were using, and got MSDS sheets in case of a spill or accident.

Turns out that a plane decided not to fly about 5 hours later....caused a spill and we had FD notified prior to arrivial there was a HAZ MAT scene.  They really appreciated it.

[SJFedor]

Good jobs on scoring outstanding on flight line ops, but that's really not what he was asking....

[davidsinn]

Good jobs on scoring outstanding on flight line ops, but that's really not what he was asking....

Doesn't it roll into the Air Branch score since it's a subordinate to the AOBD?

[SJFedor]

Good jobs on scoring outstanding on flight line ops, but that's really not what he was asking....

Doesn't it roll into the Air Branch score since it's a subordinate to the AOBD?

Nope. AOBD is evaluated separately. Aircrews are also a separate evaluation from AOBD.

http://level2.cap.gov/documents/CAP_USAFI_10_2701.pdf

That's how the USAF evaluates us.

[CadetProgramGuy]

Good jobs on scoring outstanding on flight line ops, but that's really not what he was asking....

Doesn't it roll into the Air Branch score since it's a subordinate to the AOBD?

Nope. AOBD is evaluated separately. Aircrews are also a separate evaluation from AOBD.

http://level2.cap.gov/documents/CAP_USAFI_10_2701.pdf

That's how the USAF evaluates us.

He's absolutely correct.  They are rated seperately.

Here is what i would make sure I had planned / prepped for:

Communication outages
Overdue aircraft
Aircraft down situations
Emergency diverts
If you use a computer, have paper backups of everything.

[isuhawkeye]

I was a "Trusted Agent" a few years ago.  For an eval be aware of the following

The evaluators may pull an aircrew and give them their own briefing.  They may tell your crew to turn off their CAP radio, and divert to a remote airfield.  Once at this field an AF evaluator may be present with a vehicle.  THis evaluator will pick up our crew and transport them to a simulated accident scene where your crew will serve as the victims. 

THey will then see if you recognize that the crew has not checked in.  They will grade you on your response.

I personally do not like this tactic.  It puts an incredible amount of stress on the participants, but it has been done in the past

[davidsinn]

I personally do not like this tactic.  It puts an incredible amount of stress on the participants, but it has been done in the past

Isn't that the point?

[isuhawkeye]

there is a difference between exercising procedures, and placing managers in a position to truly believe that one of their crews has crashed. 

Mis a check in, and see if it gets caught.  Thats one thing, but to take a simulation to that extreme is not productive for system development, or the participants.

I already know of to many very good staff officers who refuse to participate in evals

After all the eval is not the Kobayashi Maru

[Eclipse]

A missing aircrew scenario has been SOP in our wing for a couple of years now, probably as much because for a time they were not treated with the urgency they should have been.

We still have issue treating missing ground teams with urgency.

We'd be better off if we treated more of our SAREx's like "no-win scenarios" instead of the way a lot of IC's and mission staff try to game the scenario instead of playing like it was real.

[isuhawkeye]

dont get me wrong.  I'm all for real world training, and if an overdue is part of the accepted challenges thats great. 

My experience with this type of situation was very negative.  When you make plans to really get chaplains to crew members family's houses, and your talking about bringing CISM in for Staff you may have taken the scenario to far.

[Eclipse]

OK, that's taking it too far...

[arajca]

Continuing the drift...

The issue of gaming the eval, IMHO, results from having the IC plan the exercise. I think each wing and region should have an exercise planning team, whose members do not serve as players in the exercises they plan, especially for evaluated exercises.

[Eclipse]

120%

Too many planning sections are trying to maximize aircraft movement, travel time and other extraneous factors.

There needs to be an OPFOR team setting things up, providing input and other details.

Al the IC should know walking in is what the scenario is, nothing more.

[Larry Mangum]

I have been an IC during an EVAL where we received an Excellent and the OSC where we received an Oustanding, so I will provide you what insights I have on how to score an Outstanding in Air OPs.

1.  Keep the status boards up to date! Cannot stress this enough., this is a biggie with the Eval Team.  If an aircraft is more then 10 minutes overdue, immediately have HighBird start a roll call and start to identify which resource is going to replace them and what assets you need to start a search for them.
2.  Keep close track of where all of your assets are , both in the air and on the ground.  
3.  If perfroming an ELT search and you have a mixed fleet of Becker and Ltronics  units, try to always use the Becker equipped units first.
4.  Weight and Balance, have crews compute it.
5.  Post the weather in the search area and keep it up to date. If during the summer have the density altitude posted.
6.  Set up a crew prep area for them to plan their sorties at, that keeps them out of the way of the air ops staff. Do the same for a crew rest area.
7.  Have handouts, available for the crews (IE. airport diagram, fuel procedures, taxi plan, etc..)
8.  Checklists, cannot say enough about this.  Use them for yourself, for your briefer, for the crews.
9  Monitor crew briefing, but do not attempt to do all of them yourself. Your job as the AOBD is to manage airops, not to do it all yourself.
10.  Plan your highbirds. Launch a highbird to facilitate inbound aircraft sorties and be prepared to launch a relief crew if necessary before the general brief.
11.  Check to ensure that all pilot's have current: Medicals, Form 5's Form 91's
12.  Be sure you have a qualified assistant.  If they see that you are doing everything yourself, they may decide that you become incapacitated.
13.  Have a Status Map that shows what aircraft are in what grids.
14.  Come prepared with your own forms, even if you are using the IMU, be prepared to fall back onto the forms if it goes down.
15.  Use cadets to keep the status boards up to date, they are very very good at this.
16.  Be prepared for them to attempt to throw as many monkey wrenches into the mix as they can. During the last Eval, they told out HighBird to go land at an airport to see how we would handle losing our airborne communications platform. Simulated a gas leak in the building. Had my Assistant collapse while performing the role call after we evacuated the building. Had family members attempt to sneak into the ops area. Had real reporters show up. Had simulated press and TV show up. Had Friends wanting to fly into our grids to assist.  On and on it went. But we got through it and earned an Excellent Overall. Which is not bad considering the wing had failed its GTE the year before.  


Last but not least, follow the KISS principle and try to anticipate

[Larry Mangum]

In Washingotn the CAPRAP plans the GTE and EVAL with input from the State Director and trusted agensts. The IC does not know what he will be hit with.

[Eclipse]

In Washingotn the CAPRAP plans the GTE and EVAL with input from the State Director and trusted agensts. The IC does not know what he will be hit with.

That's the general idea, but not the reality.

For any GTE or Biennial, there will have been weeks if not months of planning, staging of aircraft, and 2-way discussions regarding the real-world capabilities of the respective state.

SD's have a limited amount of resources, as does CAP, and they can't randomly drop people all over the state for a mission. An ICP's location will be decided well in advance, and the resources and people will be moved to that area, with the SD giving the IC and Wing staff a very good idea of what the missions will be, where they will be, and the timing.

In the real world the poop hits the fan and people have to move to the poop.

Someday I would like to see a wing do an eval as a full call-up, with nothing more than 1-weeks notice to "be available for the whole weekend".

[isuhawkeye]

wawing has some excellent advice. 

I enjoyed being a trusted agent for the eval team.  it helped me learn more about what the af was looking for while providing them some insight into the capabilities of the wing, and local emergency response procedures. 

[Larry Mangum]

In Washingotn the CAPRAP plans the GTE and EVAL with input from the State Director and trusted agensts. The IC does not know what he will be hit with.

That's the general idea, but not the reality.

For any GTE or Biennial, there will have been weeks if not months of planning, staging of aircraft, and 2-way discussions regarding the real-world capabilities of the respective state.

SD's have a limited amount of resources, as does CAP, and they can't randomly drop people all over the state for a mission. An ICP's location will be decided well in advance, and the resources and people will be moved to that area, with the SD giving the IC and Wing staff a very good idea of what the missions will be, where they will be, and the timing.

In the real world the poop hits the fan and people have to move to the poop.

Someday I would like to see a wing do an eval as a full call-up, with nothing more than 1-weeks notice to "be available for the whole weekend".

That is the reality in Washington State, I never said that that was the standard for other states. The only input the wing has into the scenario is the location of the ICP and to provide the AF with a couple of choices as to when it would like to hold the EVAL or GTE.