A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

Aviano AB was crowded with over 150 airframes of various types on station. We had one hardened aircraft shelter that heldtwo A-10s—one CANN aircraft and usually one that was undergoing unscheduled maintenance due to an in-flight write-up. The other 13 Hogs were parked outside—up to three per hardstand. This created an additional workload for the maintainers by requiring additional tow jobs at the end of the scheduled flying period; it also necessitated some creative planning during launches. We continued to generate more and more sorties, as well as CSAR alert lines. Due to our 24-hour CSAR commitment, we did not enjoy the eight- to 10-hour down period to maintain our aircraft that many of the other units had. We usually flew our tasked sorties during the day and then assumed nighttime (airborne or ground) CSAR alert. Most other flying units had either a day mission or a night mission. Due to our capabilities, we had both. We would postflight our last sorties of the day and immediately start reconfiguring jets to cover the night CSAR alert tasking. This dual tasking presented many challenges and resulted in a full schedule—one that challenged our aircraft, aircrew, and maintenance resources every day.

This pace continued for the next couple of weeks with our pilots flying long sorties—often exceeding seven hours. Aviano continued to receive and bed down additional fighter aircraft. By 7 April, it had over 170 aircraft on station and was looking for a place to park more F-16s. To help reduce our sortie length and make room for more aircraft at Aviano, the 81st looked for a new location further south that would be closer to the KEZ. We were tasked to send a senior maintainer on a site survey trip to several southern Italian air bases. CMSgt Ray Ide, our rep, evaluated three bases during a 12-hour trip on 6 April 1999. When he came back he said, “Gioia del Colle will work, but we need about a week to spin it up to minimum standards.” There were no munitions on base, no munitionsstorage or buildup area, no dedicated facilities for use by maintenance, and virtually no back-shop maintenance support in place. By the next day, rumors were rampant, and most folks anticipated relocation in about two weeks.

\Photo: SrA Nick Kraska working on a jet

Shortly after I arrived at work on Thursday, 8 April, I was tasked to visit Gioia del Colle for a more in-depth site survey. I was accompanied by some Sixteenth Air Force logistics reps. We arrived at our destination late that night and were ready to get busy the next morning. We had all day Friday to look at the base. From a maintenance perspective, I could tell instantly that we had our work cut out to make it suitable. We would be able to use only one of the hardened aircraft shelters for the entire maintenance package—which had now grown to 22 A-10s (18 from Spangdahlem and four from Pope). This increase also meant that additional personnel and equipment would be required. We went toe-to-toe with the Italian air force and were able to gain a second shelter. We would still be a little crowded, but we were definitely much better off with the additional shelter and would be able to set up our back-shop support in one shelter and run the flight-line maintenance-support section and mobility-readiness spares package in the other.

Eventually we would add a small garage-type building that would house our nondestructive-inspection, wheel-and-tire, and repair-and-reclamation sections. This arrangement would be the extent of our shelter facilities for the duration of OAF. Since we were unable to get any more hangar space to work our CANN aircraft or to conduct any heavy maintenance, we would have to be creative with pallet bags and tarps to cover and protect areas of the CANN aircraft from the elements and debris.