The airmen who maintain the Air Force’s EC-135 Rivet Joint for operations in Southwest Asia are deployed far longer and far more often than most other airmen—they are part of the group known as high demand/low density. The service’s few RC-135s must fly 24/7/365. “We are considered [air expeditionary force] enablers, meaning we do not follow the 120 day, 15-month [AEF] cycle; … we deploy all the time,” Capt. Lance Bartlett, OIC for the 55th Aircraft Maintenance Unit in SWA, told the Desert Eagle. (Bartlett is on his third SWA deployment, but TSgt. Daniel Green, an RC-135 instrument and flight control craftsman, is on his 18th deployment to the desert since 1993.) Bartlett says the 55th AMU managed to maintain an 82 percent mission capable rate over fiscal 2006, which betters the standard by eight percent—no small feat with 1960s vintage aircraft.
is a small contingent of pilots and sensor operators in Southwest Asia and more back in the states at Nellis AFB, Nev., who fly and target the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles. The SWA-based pilots get the small aircraft off the ground and remotely fly the UAV within 25 miles of their base; they also engage weapons. Once beyond the 25-mile perimeter, though, the stateside pilots take over. Maj. Craig Babbitt, commander of the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, told the Red Tail Flyer that the only reason the stateside pilots don’t fly the entire mission is because of a six-second satellite delay. Still, being able to fly the bulk of every mission from Nevada means the Air Force can limit the number of airmen it must deploy. Babbitt has less than a dozen airmen in his squadron.