JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
"Wingman." It's a word that elicits a range of reactions. Upon hearing it, some will straighten their spines with pride. Others will roll their eyes with disdain. It has become both a powerful concept and an overused term. When I ask Airmen what the word wingman means to them, the most common answer is "motherhood." Somewhere along the way, in our well-meaning attempt to encourage a climate of mutual support, it seems the true meaning of wingman has been replaced with an oversimplified version. It's important we set that right; a positive wingman culture is central to our success.
In years of formation flying, I've come to my own conclusions about what constitutes a good wingman. When we assemble a formation and work together toward an objective, the contract between formation members is defined and wingmen are charged with keeping it, quite a simple concept. But, as with most things, the devil is in the details; what are the typical expectations of a wingman? What sorts of things do we expect from a wingman every time? In my view, three qualities define a good wingman, and each deserves a bit more explanation.
Mutual support is the part of being a wingman that gets the greatest emphasis these days as we hold our team together in challenging times. The best leaders expect wingmen to be on the lookout for threats to the formation and empower wingmen to intervene and keep the formation safe. If the third C-17 in a three-ship formation sees that the leader is about to fly the team through a thunderstorm, it is incumbent on that wingman to key the radio and say "lead, three ... change heading now." When a group of off-duty Airmen find themselves having a good time but one is headed for trouble, the effective wingman is the one who speaks up and says "change heading now." This isn't always comfortable, but it's the right thing to do and the expectation of every wingman. Of course, to intervene and provide support to a teammate, you've got to first sense a problem.
The second quality in a good wingman is situational awareness beyond the self. From the day we each commit to the Air Force, formation operations commence and are perpetual until we're no longer in uniform. Nothing any of us do, good or bad, is consequence free for our teammates and abandonment of the situation or failure to act are not options ... because when you go it alone, you pay the price, and so does your wingman. In 1943, as the United States Army Air Force prepared for World War II, a formation of B-24 Liberators took off from a training field in Georgia for routine maneuvers. Sgt. Robert Hammer was relaying radio signals from his aircraft to another when he witnessed one bomber deviate from position and pass too closely to another; the deviating bomber was correcting his own airspeed without regard for his position in the formation, and the results were devastating. The two aircraft collided and were lost. The squadron deployed with two fewer bombers and 20 fewer Airmen than it needed. The mishap was preventable if anyone in the formation had sensed the subtle but important changes taking place. For members of today's Air Force, this means staying involved enough to sense what's going on with your teammates. Awareness is critical because if a formation member is hiding a problem and performance degrades without warning, everyone suffers. Sensing degraded performance is made much simpler, however, when such instances are rare. This brings us to a third important point.
Perhaps the least discussed but most important aspect of being a wingman is also the simplest: individual reliability. If each Airman does his or her job and is always in position, the formation will spend less energy on mutual support and more energy on making the enemy suffer. When Gen. Bill Creech took command of Tactical Air Command in 1978, he was confronted with a unique distraction. Many of his crews at Holloman Air Force Base were performing dive-bombing missions but crediting themselves with dive-toss proficiency. Put simply, they were falsifying training records. Because of this, he couldn't rely on the wing to execute its combat mission. General Creech conducted an investigation resulting in the firing of multiple commanders and crews. These activities dominated the command's focus for months and left it one wing short for a period of time. Our Air Force cannot answer the nation's call without a commitment to individual excellence and responsibility. No squadron in our Air Force is built with the assumption of subpar performance. When one of us falls short, it puts more strain on the rest of the team.
There's nothing more important to our current and future Air Force than reinforcement of a positive service culture. The term wingman has perhaps been overused in recent times, but reflecting on all that it implies is the key to shared "Excellence in All We Do." While we can survive by intervening to keep each other out of trouble, we can only truly thrive by creating a culture that champions all aspects of being a good wingman. We must continue to encourage these qualities across our service.