RAFM supports Riga Summit

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Clark Staehle
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF Mildenhall --  Heads of government and state of the 26 NATO countries descended on Latvia for the Riga Summit Nov. 28 and 29. While at the summit, the leaders discussed among other things, operations in Afghanistan.

Getting the leaders and their staffs to the right place on time and providing support and security can take a huge amount of coordination, cooperation and logistics, often with people who don't usually work together.

NATO organized the operation to facilitate the summit.

"Our role was to provide all the fuel for all the aircraft in the area we provided the (combat air patrol) for," said Col. J.D. Clifton, 100th Operations Group commander. "It went exceptionally well. We had 100 percent on-time take offs, we had all the fuel we needed up there. We had 100 percent (air refueling) effectiveness."

Four KC-135s, 21 aircrew members and 26 maintainers were brought to RAF Mildenhall from Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., and Grand Forks AFB, N.D. Together, planes and crews from the three bases were tasked to support 24-hour air policing, which helped provide security for the summit.

"All of the maintenance was from Fairchild, the only participation from Grand Forks was the three sets of aircrew - the nine individuals," said Maj. Steve Preston, 93rd Air Refueling Squadron at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. "Fairchild provided the three crews and the staff."

Supporting the extra 47 Airmen and their jets with minimum notice was a tremendous undertaking for units at RAF Mildenhall.

"Mildenhall did a lot of legwork beforehand," Major Preston said. "They welcomed us, they had everything ready for us. They had our billeting ready for us, they had cars, they had radios, beepers, everything. It was outstanding, excellent support."

"We brought all the crews in and the maintainers and we just treated them like our own," said Capt. Jeremy Leighton, 100th Operations Support Squadron. "We just pulled them into our normal everyday operations and instead of doing our normal scheduling, we just had a few more extra sorties a day."

"Both Mildenhall operations and Fairchild and Grand Forks operations, the teamwork between the two was outstanding," Major Preston said. "The 'one team, one fight' mantra was absolutely true in this case. It was pretty seamless. Maintenance got outstanding support from Mildenhall, they were extremely pleased. It ran like clockwork."
In addition to working with NATO, who ran the operation, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Air Mobility Command and European Command were also involved.

Supporting an operation like a NATO summit can take a huge cast of characters. Aside from the crews and planes who supported the event, additional Air Force Reserve and Guardsmen helped with the operation.

While American forces were supporting their part of the summit, other militaries from NATO countries also helped support the mission.

One aircrew suppoerting the summit was tasked to support Air Force One, by refueling fighter escorts. Additionally, another jet was intercepted by two Swedish JAS 39 Griffin fighters who were training in the same area the tanker was flying through.

"Every one of these missions were priority one-alpha-ones (the highest priority)," Colonel Clifton said. "This was a Team Mildenhall thing. Maintenance was out there getting the jets ready for us. The cops had the all gates opened up for us, during hours they typically keep the gates closed because we had 24-hour operations. The flight kitchen cooked meals 24 hours a day.

"The fuel guys here moved about 300 percent more fuel then they typically do in a three-day period," he added.

"Transportation helped us too," the colonel said. "We had a lot of extra crews, but it wasn't just us- the 727th Air Mobility Squadron had a lot of extra crews who came in to support this operation. There was a lot of teamwork, not just inside the wing, but with the partner units to make this happen."