JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
Does the Air Force have a language all its own? You betcha! Have you ever thought about what "language" we speak as Air Force members and why it's important? While it's becoming more and more common to speak our hodge-podge, English-acronym-text style language, I argue that it is more important than ever to understand and communicate the one true language that we all are supposed to speak in the Air Force ... the Air Force Instructions and technical orders.
I recently spent six months as a deployed squadron commander. While deployed, I was quickly reminded that each base, whether Active Duty, Reserve or Guard, all have a stout set of "isms" and their own particular way of doing things.
Early in my deployment, we had maintainers primarily from two bases, but when actions in Libya kicked off and refuelers were needed, Air Mobility Command directed a massive shift in locations for Guard units as well as the Total Force units. In a matter of six days, we rotated 12 jets and 60 people. While those numbers are not exactly staggering, the end result was having nine different tail flashes on our sixteen KC-135 refuelers and having to mesh ARC maintainers from thirty different bases. We all had to work together to deliver the daily Air Tasking Order.
While each individual had mission focus, we quickly learned that we were speaking different languages based on the part of the country we were from, the base we were from and the climate in which each of us were used to operating. Our biggest language barrier wasn't trying to learn Russian or Kyrgyz. It was remembering to overtly communicate the steps in the technical order, review the safety cautions and warnings and ensure we all understood the role of each maintainer prior to beginning a job. Like most lessons, this one came at a price. We broke a perfectly good KC-135.
On a very cold night in November, the guidance and control technicians were called out to a jet to change a flap transmitter ... not a particularly tough job. The task leader was a technical sergeant from Birmingham, Ala., the ground and safety guy was a staff sergeant from Scott, Air Force Base, Ill., the senior airman ensuring smooth cable flow during the ops check was from MacDill AFB, Fla., and an airman first class from Fairchild AFB, Wash., tagged along because he had never done the task before. None of the individuals had ever worked together.
Once the installation of the new transmitter was complete, the team began their ops check which included lowering the flap to certain positions to ensure the readings were accurate. If you have never seen a KC-135 flap move while on the ground, it rivals the amount of time it takes to get the family in the car before an outing. Throw in a few lost shoes, a forgotten cell phone, a bathroom run and a couple of fussy kids and you get the point. With the slow moving flap, three people on the ground and one in the flight deck performing the job, you would think that someone would have noticed the bright orange ladder standing under and directly in the path of the flap. The sound of crunching metal caused a reaction similar to getting blasted in the face with a surprise snowball ... stunned bewilderment followed by a moment of sobriety.
There were several factors that went into this mishap. Without turning this into an outright Operational Risk Management, CRM, LRM discussion, the root cause of the accident was the lack of effective communication and not directly following the technical order for the job. Once we investigated the incident, we realized the team was just like one you would find in a pick-up basketball game ... whoever was on the sideline was drafted into the game. The individuals made assumptions and performed the job the way they were taught back at their respective bases. The problem again, was they all had their own way of doing things.
In the end, the crushed flap incident highlighted a significant challenge in the expeditionary environment: different people coming together from different bases to perform the mission encounter communication or language barriers. The one true thing we have in common (and why the expeditionary system can work) is that all of us are taught the same language at technical school. We all learn the exact same verbiage in the technical orders and Air Force Instructions. So ask yourself, do you perform to the Air Force standard by following technical orders and clearly communicating no matter what team you are on? Or are you setting yourself up for that surprise snowball to the face when a combat sortie is resting on your shoulders?