The multibillion-dollar weapons and aircraft acquisition programs that the Aeronautical Systems Center handles were quickly reoriented in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks to focus on short-term concerns involving terror threats, Russo recalled. The emphasis became how quickly the acquisition operation could deliver equipment that U.S. forces could use against terrorists, amounting to an overnight switch from long-term strategies to short-term tactical operations, he said.
“It put a big additional workload and urgency on the people,” Russo said of the center’s work force. “I thought the work force really responded well.”
As a reminder of the continuing threat to America, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday that it authorized raising the level of security protection for U.S. bases in advance of the 10th anniversary of the attacks. There is no evidence of a specific threat, but the military wants to be prepared for any effort by terrorists to strike on or before the anniversary, Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
The U.S. policy decision to focus on finding and killing terrorists increased pressure on Wright-Patterson to develop and deploy unmanned aircraft and sensor systems that could provide critical intelligence and surveillance and that could fire missiles at the enemy. Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles were developed, and the military focused on rapidly training pilots who could fly the craft from afar.
“We needed the ability to ‘stare’ at an area for a consistent and long period of time, a platform that can watch for anything to move,” base spokesman Daryl Mayer said. “They really kind of ramped that capability up ... in terms of developing new sensors, determining better ways for single individuals to control UAVs, better interfaces between man and machine, better ways to transmit information down to the ground, and to convert the information into a form that the battlefield commander can use in real-time.”
That emphasis drew on Wright-Patterson’s status as a hub of Air Force research and development, logistics and acquisition.
The 2001 attacks have permanently increased the demand for deployments from Wright-Patterson and other bases, as well as National Guard and reserve units. Wright-Patterson typically has 300 to 500 members deployed at any given time, a total of about 1,000 over the course of each year.
The 445th Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve unit based at Wright-Patterson whose ranks include pilots, medical evacuation teams, maintenance and mission support personnel, was among units around the country pressed into immediate service as the U.S. military reacted to the attacks on New York and Washington.
Maj. Richard Wartenberg, one of the 445th’s air crew members, recalls flying over the crash sites at the Pentagon and Ground Zero and seeing the smoke. The pilots were directed to fly to the Royal Air Force Mildenhall base in England to retrieve U.S. special operations forces there for missions back at home.
Because commercial aviation in this country was grounded immediately after the attacks, the skies were strangely quiet as military pilots flew about.
“It was actually pretty eerie,” Wartenberg said. “Usually, there’s a lot of radio traffic and everything else. But being the only few planes in the air that day, you got directly wherever you wanted to go.”
The 445th flew a Wright-Patterson Medical Center trauma, surgical and critical care team to support the emergency responses at the 2001 crash sites.
Maj. LeRoy W. Homer Jr., 36, who had served as a C-141 instructor pilot with the 445th Airlift Wing, was the first officer aboard United Airlines Flight 93 that was hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11 and crashed in Shanksville, Pa., as passengers aboard the plane tried to take back control of the plane. Homer, six other crew members and 38 passengers aboard the United flight were killed. In October 2008, Wright-Patterson dedicated the 445th’s operations building in Homer’s name.
In the decade since the attacks, the 445th has stayed busy flying weapons, troops, munitions and soldiers’ gear overseas for transport to war zones in the U.S. battle against terrorists.
Its mission has periodically been altered by the aircraft assigned to the unit. Just after the attacks, the 445th used C-141s to fly aeromedical evacuation missions, as well as cargo. When those were retired years later, the massive C-5 Galaxy transport planes that replaced them shifted the mission to flying cargo. With the unit now seeing its C-5s retired, the C-17s brought in to succeed them will support both flying of cargo and medical patients.
The C-141s proved especially valuable in the waning years of their service. The 445th flew them to bring thousands of injured troops from war zones back to the United States for medical treatment, carried enemy detainees from their capture locations to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and evacuated wounded residents from the Gulf Coast after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit.
“Those were some of the most productive years that we had the plane,” said Lt. Col. Mike Baker, assistant operations officer with the 89th Airlift Squadron. “The Air Force, in general, got a pretty big bang for its buck with that plane.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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