produce more graduates. We’re going to
hold the standard high.
‘We try to graduate the ‘ace of the base,’
if you will; that tactical expert, one of
the better aviators in the squadron, but
also the trusted advisor to the graduate’s
squadron leadership on all things tactics.
The weapons o cer is often the squadron
commander’s ‘right-hand man’ — he’s
making sure the squadron’s being trained
well and is ready when needed to deploy.’
Potential weapons school students
are nominated through a formal board
process. Each B-1 unit commander sends
recommendations to their wing leader
and these names are submitted to the
school, which decides who to take.
However, due to the small and close-knit nature of the B-1 community, every
squadron commander is a graduate of
the weapons school, and understands
the nature and challenges of the course.
Meanwhile, the 77th’s instructors often
travel to other squadrons to ‘scout’ for
potential candidates and already have a
good idea of who is right for the program.
The course syllabus is constantly under
review to ensure the graduates are being
taught to the highest level imaginable.
Furthermore, upon completion of each
six-month course, the weapons school as
a whole converges to discuss and evaluate
the school and its program. They look at
real-world events and try to solve such
problems as potential hostilities with
North Korea or China. That immediatelyWe don’t try to take the guy from
the operational squadron and turn
him into a tester. We’ve lost that real-world
representative if we do that
evolves the course syllabus. McClung
adds, ‘The Department of Defense loves to
throw problems at us and make sure we
are still creating the best weapons o cer
to solve any problem. When we discuss
the big-picture scenarios with North Korea
[for example], we may notice some holes
in our syllabus that we’ll ll in [during] the
next course, so we are always changing
and upgrading the syllabus.’Mutual support
Being co-located helps both the weapons
squadron and the test squadron enhance
their overall e ectiveness. Hernandez
says, ‘We often have weapons school guys
y with us, and we y with them. We let
them borrow our aircraft, so we can see
how their students — [who] are future
weapons school o cers — react to the
new capabilities that we are testing.
‘The other big bene t is the support we
get at the weapons school integration
exercise at Nellis, held twice each year. We
take our two assigned jets out to Nellis, so
we get to test the software or capability
in the most realistic combat environment
possible. We can’t build a better
operationally relevant environment than
what is done out at Nellis. During [the
exercise], we have every platform the air
force has available, and every capability,
and they ght like they’d ght in the next
war. So, what better environment is there
to perform testing?’UNIT REPORT // 337TH TES, 77TH WPS
34 June 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
30-35 B1 Weapons Test C.indd 34 19/04/2018 15:42