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Transient alert Airmen provide Bagram some staying power

  • Published
  • By Maj. David Kurle
  • 455 AEW Public Affairs
BAGRM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Imagine parking hundreds of cars and trucks in a convenience store parking lot.
 
It would take ingenuity and creativity, kind of like stuffing people into a phone booth. 

Now, imagine parking those cars if they were the size of a C-17 and the task of the transient alert team at the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing here becomes a little clearer. 

“It’s kind of like a giant puzzle, you’ve got to make it all fit,” said Staff Sgt. Gordon Torrey, deployed from Pope Air Force Base, N.C., he is one of six transient alert Airmen in the 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron. 

Their job is to find parking places for an average of 650 transient aircraft each month, which bring cargo, passengers and distinguished visitors to this joint base, currently the hub of activity for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

Parking problem
The problem for transient alert is the small amount of space for aircraft that land here but are not assigned here permanently, hence the term, transient. The 455th AEW boasts a joint flying mission, managing A-10s, multiple versions of C-130 operations and even some Navy EA-6 Prowler aircraft. All of this while sharing a ramp with the Army for its aviation operations in Afghanistan. 

“We have about four spots left, so parking is real hard on this base,” Sergeant Torrey said. “If we don’t have room to park an aircraft, we have to turn them away, and we don’t want that.” 

More than 9,500 military members from all branches, as well as civilians, equates to a lot of aircraft landing here serving as the base’s lifeline for supplies. This means transient alert, or TA as its known, must find creative solutions to overcome the lack of aircraft parking on Bagram’s ramp. 

TA works very closely with the 455th’s command post, the two agencies stay in constant communication via radio, according to Tech. Sgt. Michael Leach, the TA day-shift supervisor, deployed from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. Aircraft must have prior permission to land and pilots radio the command post with their landing times, which then get passed on to TA. Then, TA has to make sure there is a place to park the aircraft, based on its size, cargo and whether it’s carrying distinguished visitors.

Valet parking for DVs
“When a plane has a DV, we try to put them on Spot-1, the closest to the passenger terminal,” Sergeant Leach said. “That’s another reason command post is great, because they tell us about DVs coming in, otherwise we’d just park the plane anywhere we had space.”

“We coordinate with TA on all the parking spots,” said Master Sgt. Mark Geffre, command post superintendent deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. “Without these guys helping me and rotating parking spots we wouldn’t be able to move cargo and passengers efficiently. They’re our eyes and ears on the flight line.” 

Sergeants Leach and Torrey start out their day with a plan to park all the aircraft arriving during their 12-hour shift. However, like any contingency operation, the plan must be flexible and allow for unforeseen circumstances throughout the day. 

“We try to figure it out in the morning,” Sergeant Torrey said. “We work out a plan, but what happens is the planes miss their scheduled time, or they’re on the ground longer than they’re supposed to be.

No overnight parking
“The ones who try to stay overnight are a real problem because we don’t have any overnight parking, that’s when you have to get creative,” he said. 

“We do whatever we can, but if it’s real big, like engines or a major bird strike, we just park them and try to get them maintenance,” Sergeant Leach said. 

“Our leadership supports us,” Sergeant Leach added. “They listen to us.”
 
“These guys are working hard,” said Chief Master Sgt. Brian Hornback, the 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Group’s superintendent. “They’re making amazing things happen with the equipment and the limited ramp space we have here.”