LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 633d Air Base Wing, 1st Fighter Wing and 192nd Fighter Wing participated in a Phase I Operational Readiness Exercise Nov. 16 through 19, simulating a rapid-response large scale deployment.
The four-day exercise was designed to prepare the wings for an upcoming operational readiness inspection, which tests the unit's ability to deploy to a remote site and operate in a hostile environment.
"During a 48 hour exercise period, Team Langley processed more than 700 Airmen through personnel deployment function lines while others packed, documented and inspected more than 300 short tons of equipment," said Col. Donald Kirkland, 633 ABW commander. "This allows commanders to measure our readiness for a real world crisis."
To be evaluated for this exercise, a group of individuals, who experts in their career field called Wing Exercise Evaluation Team members, is pulled out of everyday duties to help evaluate its squadron.
"A WEET's job is to evaluate the wings ability to do whatever the task is at hand, for this instance the ORE," said Maj. Phillip Lancaster, 1 FW chief of Plans, Programs and Evaluations. "These team members are sponsored by their supervisors and squadron commanders and become delegated representatives to go out and test their areas, to make sure they are meeting all of the Air Force Instructions and technical orders, for safety and operational security concerns."
The WEET members also went to each area not only looking for large discrepancies but attention-to-detail type problems, such as leaving someone's common access card in a computer and participants of the exercise not wearing reflective belts. They also asked Airmen questions like:
Who is the vice commander of the 633 ABW? U.S. Army Col. Reggie Austin
What's a UCC? Unit Control Center
"We may see something happening in one area and we say 'hey, there may be a problem here,' and we move it up the chain of command," said Major Lancaster. "My favorite part of my job is watching three wings of inspectors... come together and evaluate three different wings and watching the learning curve spike."
"We plan on improving the next ORE by giving an unbiased opinion from all three wings' inspectors," he added. "From there the commanders put our follow ups into motion and fix the problems that were discovered."
The three wings are scheduled for two exercises in 2011, one in January and the other in February, before the operational readiness inspection April 8 through 13, 2011.