LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Virginia –
The joke around the squadron is that Lt. Col. Matt Fenton commands the eighth largest air force in the world.
While meant in jest, the 60 pilots and 45 F-15Cs that make up the 71st Fighter Squadron may not be far from that mark.
“I don’t know of any U.S. Air Force single seat fighter squadron as large as ours,” Colonel Fenton said.
Dubbed a “super squadron,” the 71st almost doubled in size when the 94th Fighter Squadron converted to an F-22A squadron in December. Pilots, planes and maintainers not converting to the Raptor joined the Ironmen.
“Not all the pilots came, but some did,” Colonel Fenton said. “Some went to Raptor training. Some aircraft are scheduled to go to Kadena. At some point we’ll draw down to our normal size.”
A normal F-15 squadron is authorized 18 to 24 war-ready aircraft, plus extra aircraft as back-ups. The 71st currently has 45 aircraft, down from 49 earlier in the year.
Having many airplanes has its own challenges, Colonel Fenton said.
“From one day to the next, we doubled in size,” he explained. “Our building wasn’t built for a squadron this size.”
To overcome the space problem, officers are sharing office space and computers, and part of the bathroom was converted into a life support shop.
Another challenge is getting everyone in such a large flying squadron all their flight hours.
“It’s a lot of mouths to feed,” said 1st Lt. Matt Booth, 1st Operations Support Squadron. “Pilots need training to keep combat ready. You need an effective schedule to meet everyone’s needs.”
Having a large flying squadron does have it’s advantages, Colonel Fenton said.
“It gives you a lot of options,” he said. “We can do large force employment training all in the squadron without having to rely on another unit. There’s a lot of flexibility in the number of sorties we have available.”
Lieutenant Booth said he liked having that much experience in one squadron.
“It’s good to have all the F-15s under one roof,” he said. “The knowledge base is larger.”
Pilots aren’t the only ones affected by the merger. The 71st Aircraft Maintenance Unit faces its own challenges.
“The biggest challenge is keeping 45 aircraft flying,” said 1st Lt. Mario Hernandez, 71st AMU assistant officer in charge. “You can’t keep an aircraft on the ground too long. So keeping 45 of them on the schedule and balancing it with scheduled maintenance is challenging.”
Lieutenant Hernandez said he took the merger as a challenge.
“It was something that if done right could be great,” he said. “It’s an operation where you have to be able to depend on your people because so many different wheels are spinning.”
Colonel Fenton said the 71st should be back to its normal size by fall of 2006, but until then they’re just having fun being a super squadron.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “We have twice the number of friends and twice the number of unique personalities. I think our people are super, and the new Ironmen are just as super as the old.”