The F-15 requires a far larger team of
specialists and maintainers to manage its
complex weapons systems. However, fewer
aircrew are required for the Eagle mission:
one pilot in an F-15C versus six crew
members in a C-130H.
‘The F-15 manning document was larger
than the C-130 overall, so we had to try to
dovetail a lot of the people around the wing
into [new] jobs’, Hover explains. ‘Within
maintenance we had a lot of people that
would not have been able to continue
when we reduced on the maintenance side.
Actually, while maintenance was reduced,
the operations side expanded because we
gained fl ight engineers and loadmasters. So
a lot of our F-15 maintainers converted over
to either become enlisted fl ight engineers or
to the loadmaster position. This happened
throughout the wing as well. They all had
to go off to school, just like the pilots did.
We still don’t have our full complement
back here, as some of our maintainers are
still away at school. We also took some folks
who wanted to be navigators and pilots and
sent them away to school as well. We won’t
see them back for quite some time.’Adapting and providing
In their previous life the ‘Vigilantes’ were
largely responsible for sitting alert and
covering the air sovereignty mission at
deployed locations. Other units from within
CONUS, including those from Colorado
and Oregon, have now largely assumed the
mission vacated by the Montana Eagles.
The 120th Airlift Wing may still be in the
conversion phase to the C-130, but it is
already being called upon and stepping up to
fulfi ll missions.
Col Hover commented: ‘In the airlift
world there is always a need to send out
a pilot, a fl ight engineer or another trade
to help supplement another unit that is
on deployment overseas. We’ve already
got folks supporting other units that had a
shortfall. Even though we are in our fi rst year
of conversion we are well into the C-130
mission already. We have been signing up for
as many taskings as we can support for the
past six months, so we’ve been fl ying JAATT
(Joint Airborne/Air Transportability Training)
support missions with the Army and we are
doing ‘Guard lifts’ in the CONUS, which are
basically anything that the ANG gets asked
to provide lift capability for. So I already
feel like we are contributing to the overall
air mobility picture even in our fi rst year —
we are not just fl ying around the fl agpole,
even though we are still in our conversion
process.‘Precision air-drop and
combat airlift missions
are a big culture
change for us because
of the way we now do
business in the AMC
world’
Col Patrick HoverThis photo: The Montana
Guardsmen have already started
ying Army and ANG support
missions in CONUS, despite the
fact that their transition to the
C-130 doesn’t formally end until
late 2016.
Above left to right: A sharp quartet
of 120th FW F-16C Block 30s. The
wing ew the ‘big-mouth Viper’
until 2008.
Having switched from F-16s
to F-15Cs in 2008, the wing
continued on the Eagle until
October 2013.
The latest tenant of Great
Falls is the C-130H1, marking
a signi cant change for the
Montana ANG.66 May 2015 http://www.combataircraft.net62-69 AMC part 1- Montana C.indd 66 20/03/2015 11:52