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Team JSTARS achieves milestone with 100,000 flying hours

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Colin Cates
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar -- --  One of the Founding Fathers of the United States Benjamin Franklin once said, "Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning."

Team Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, achieved a monumental milestone by exceeding 100,000 flying hours in support of combatant commanders across the world while flying a mission May 1 from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.

"Joint STARS' mission supports the combatant command by continuously providing ground commanders with command and control, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance," said Lt. Col. Claude Archambault, 7th Expeditionary Airborne Command and Control Squadron commander.

Joint STARS, which flies the E-8C Joint STAR, has accomplished over 88,600 of their 100,000 flying hours in support of the Central Command area of responsibility since 2001.

"Overall, the Joint STARS team provides essential information supporting operations including force protection, defensive operations, movement over watch, dynamic tasking of ISR assets, troop in contact with the enemy, and combat search and rescue," said Archambault.

"We are all very proud to be part of such a huge milestone in JSTARS history that represents the very significant impact this platform has made supporting combatant commands," said Staff Sgt. Kathleen Ticer, 7 EACCS, senior surveillance manager.

The joint-force unit is comprised of the Georgia Air National Guard's 116th Air Control Wing, and active duty personnel from the Air Force's 461st ACW and Army JSTARS 138th Military Intelligence Company. They have provided continuous support against the fight on terrorism for well over a decade.

"It was an honor to take part in this remarkable milestone, said Maj Eric Arcara," 7th EACCS, mission crew commander. "It took tremendous teamwork from the Air National Guard, Active Duty, and the Army to realize this momentous achievement."

Another part of the Joint STARS team is the maintainers who are responsible in keeping these aircraft combat ready.

"The 7th Expeditionary Airborne Command and Control Squadron and Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit is unique in its own because of the total force integration; we have a combination of active duty and Air National Guard personnel that work 24 hours endlessly to ensure we can execute the air tasking order," said 1st Lt. Cameron Cooper, 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron aircraft maintenance officer in charge. "Their goal is to always deliver safe and reliable aircraft to the ground troops in the AOR can receive the information they need."

"This milestone represents the hard work, professionalism, and dedication of Team JSTARS at our current and previously deployed locations, as well as at home station over the years," said Archambault. "From the airmen in maintenance, aircrew flight equipment, ground intelligence, staff personnel, transportation, aircrews, Air National Guard, active duty, and Army Soldiers; this was a true team effort! It is an honor to represent the thousands of members of Team JSTARS who have fulfilled our worldwide tasking to support our national security objectives."