14th EFS praises outstanding maintenance teamwork

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Charles Toplikar
  • 14th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron commander
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- --  Time is flying by for us here. The weather took a turn for the worse earlier this month, reducing our opportunities to fly, but providing a much-needed opportunity for our maintainers to get the climate-change kinks worked out of a few of our jets.

For those that are not familiar, F-16s are much like people in that they usually get a few sniffles and sneezes when they are moved to a new environment. It then takes a couple of weeks to adjust before they start running like a champ again. This deployment has been no exception, with a myriad of new issues that are probably due to the large amount of dust and dirt in the air. In spite of that, we have yet to lose a single sortie as a result of maintenance problems.

I took the opportunity to attend the Misawa Aircraft Maintenance unit roll call. I passed on some of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing commander's vector and thanked those Airmen for their service. They are fired up and doing an absolutely fabulous job getting our jets ready for combat sorties.

Additionally, the Chief of Staff and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force made a whirlwind tour of Balad early in the week of Feb. 6-12, providing even more words of wisdom and praise for our efforts in the global war on terror.

Once again we had a steady run of successful employment this week, with some serious "shock and awe" to those on the receiving end. 

And, of course, we have continued to extend our proud heritage of aerial reconnaissance through our expert utilization of the advanced targeting pods.