Iraq conflict provides test for new 'blended wing' concept

National Guard, Apr 2003

Georgia

Operation Iraqi Freedom is providing a baptism by fire for the new 116th Air Control Wing and its "blended wing" structure.

Nearly 200 personnel and an undisclosed number of E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar, or Joint STARS, Systems are operating in the Persian Gulf region.

The unit and its aircraft are unique. The 116th is the Air Force's first Total Force wing, combining Air Guard and active-duty airmen. And it is the only unit flying the Joint STARS, which can track moving targets on the ground.

One of the 116th's primary archisects, Maj. Gen. David Poythress, was on hand when two of the unit's planes and about 50 personnel deployed last month from their home at Robbins Air Force, Ga.

He said the 116th has come a long way since the Air Force announced plans in June 2001 to move the unit's nine B-1 bombers in a purported cost and force reduction move.

Congressional pressure and insistence from Poythress and the NGAUS eventually landed the Joint STARS mission, a move that formally "blended" the Georgia Air National Guard organization with another Robins unit, the active-duty 93rd Air Control Wing.

"When Air Force Secretary James Roche came to Robins for the formal activation of the wing last October," Poythress said, "he and I talked about when we would know if this blended-- wing concept would work. The answer was we would know the first time they deployed to an actual combat theater."

Poythress believes he already knows the answer: "I have no concern about it working and continuing to work."

-NGAUS staff report