Citation

Church AMU. Air Force Mag. 2016; 99(1): 54-58.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, United States Air Force Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Project Liberty came to an end at Beale AFB, California, on September 16, 2015 as the crews flew the last MC-12 sortie before Air Combat Command stood down the mission, transferring the aircraft to the Army, civilian contractors, and a new special operations unit in the Air National Guard. When the MC-12 first went into action, it deployed so quickly, less than a year from drawing board to combat employment, that crews were still figuring out how to use it while flying actual combat missions, said 9th Operations Group Commander Lt. Col. Darren B. Halford, who led ACC's initial stand up of the mission. During the MC-12's initial deployments to Balad in June 2009 and Bagram six months later the directive was simply to go get the job done, and the aircrews just figured out how to do it, defining the tactics, techniques, and procedures as they went. During the lead-up to the Afghan parliamentary elections, an MC-12 crew flew a night mission to locate and gather intel on a suspected terrorist. The crew relayed information to ground forces that were then able to mount a raid and capture a suicide bomber who was planning to blow himself up at a packed political rally. Now that the MC-12 is transitioning from ACC to a niche capability in ANG supporting AFSOC, the Air Force is keen on retaining this hard-won expertise. A few days after the final Stateside training sortie, and even before the final aircrews returned from Afghanistan, the Army flew the last MC-12 out of Beale.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide bomber; Combat missions; Air National Guard; Fighter aircraft; Training aircraft; Air Combat Command; Civilian contractors; Initial deployments; Parliamentary elections; Special operations