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'Airborne for freedom:' JSTARS surpasses 50,000 hour mark

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class David Dobrydney
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  By the time this story is published, the 7th Expeditionary Air Command and Control Squadron will have logged more than 50,000 hours of flight time since first arriving in Southwest Asia.

Deployed here from Robins Air Force Base, Ga., since 2001, the 7th EACCS flies the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft. Based on a civilian airliner frame, the JSTARS carries a 24-foot radar antenna beneath its fuselage. The antenna can be tilted to either side of the aircraft where it can develop a 120-degree field of view covering more than 19,000 square miles and is capable of detecting targets at more than 250 kilometers (820,000 feet). The radar also has some limited capability to detect helicopters, rotating antennas and low, slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft.

Flying missions daily in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom, JSTARS provides a constant surveillance umbrella over the area of responsibility, said Lt. Col. Alexander Koven, 7th EACCS commander.

JSTARS is unique among surveillance platforms because it carries a crew that can process the information as it's gathered.

"We can work on the data immediately because we're right there, over the battlespace," said Colonel Koven. "We have radio contact that connects us to the Air Force players and joint and Coalition partners and immediately assess the information the radar is pulling in."

Colonel Koven said JSTARS supports both today's and tomorrow's wars. "We support today's war by generating tracks sending them to the ground commander to help him perform what we call F2T2EA, which is Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage and Assess. JSTARS supports tomorrow's war by generating a wide-area ground picture that can be used to plan future operations."

To Colonel Koven, reaching 50,000 flight hours is a big deal, no matter what the type of aircraft.

"It's a significant milestone in aviation because of the effort involved in getting to that point. It's a combination of the maintainers who keep the airplanes flying and the operators who are flying these missions."

In addition to the members of the 7 EACCS, Colonel Koven wanted to thank those outside the squadron who have helped make this milestone possible.
"There is no way that we could have made it happen without force support providing us meals, security forces pro-tecting the jets, or fuels crews keeping our tanks full. This milestone could only be reached with the support of the entire 379th Air Expeditionary Wing."

Reaching 50,000 flight hours, even over a span of eight years, has not been an easy feat to accomplish.

"We have a lot of folks doing very difficult things," Colonel Koven said. "We have pilots who are landing aircraft after a long sortie, doing multiple air refuelings, keeping safe in airspaces that are not highly regulated. In the back end of the aircraft, people are working to generate actionable information for the ground forces."

For every mission a JSTARS aircraft completes, there are approximately six to eight hours of maintenance that must be completed. With missions every day, the JSTARS maintainers are always busy.

"We put so much into these planes, there is no stopping," said JSTARS Crew Chief Senior Airman Mike Alberti, who has worked on this aircraft for the past seven years.
"We clean them, maintain them and load fuel on and off them," said the Turlock, Calif., native, who has completed four deployments to Southwest Asia.

Airman Alberti said both the jet engines and the radar system need constant attention to be mission-ready, citing eight engines that required replacement during a previous rotation. "It keeps us on our toes," he said.

Despite the long hours and exhaustive effort involved, Airman Alberti admits he enjoys his job. "I think it's pretty cool. At home, it's all training. Out here, you have a great sense of accomplishment when you work all day on a plane and then watch it take off.

"It fulfills our motto 'Airborne for Freedom,'" Airman Alberti said.