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Open Skies treaty team visits McConnell

  • Published
McConnell was visited by 26 Russian Federation members and 10 American Defense Threat Reduction Agency members Sept. 21 and 22 as part of an Open Skies international treaty program.

Open Skies is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence of different participating countries by allowing all treaty members a direct role in observing military or other activities through territorial observation flights.

Participants saw many aspects of the Air Force mission: the people, the base and the community. According to base officials, with intense preparation and execution, organizers of the event set the standard for other Open Skies bases to follow.

According to David Allee, Wing Treaty Compliance officer, McConnell was ready for Open Skies because the base began preparing for the visit in March after being declared one of four Open Skies airfields.

"In the past six months we have been working aggressively to prepare our base for these demanding missions, and we have done so in grand fashion," said Mr. Allee. "All work centers worked flawlessly. We have competence at all leadership levels, which ensured the success of this mission." 

McConnell held a variety of Open Skies exercises in preparation for the real-world treaty visit. There was a DTRA table top exercise in April followed by an OC-135 crew visit.

The crew, which was comprised of many American Open Skies team chiefs and deputy team chiefs, was tasked to examine McConnell and its resources in preparation for the visit. During the first week of August, there was a "blue-on-blue exercise," in which McConnell was tasked with a joint-training flight with the British.

The British aircrew overflew the United States, playing the role of Russians and further readying McConnell for the real-world visit. 

Finally, in September, the Russians identified McConnell as their Open Skies airfield choice and the real-world overflight took place.

"The progression from the first exercise to the actual visit marked several fine-tunings that made it a top-notch event," said 1st Lt. Laura Brown, 22nd Logistics Readiness Squadron. Lieutenant Brown worked as the escort control center coordinator for all of McConnell's Open Skies exercises as well as the real-world mission.

"The volunteers did a superb job and everything flowed very smoothly," added the lieutenant.

Mr. Allee agreed with the lieutenant. From March to the end of September, the program went "from grassroots to the top of the mountain," and McConnell's efforts set them apart from other Open Skies airfields, he said.

"We have established ourselves as the leader of all Open Skies airfields and refueling airfields, and we couldn't have done that without ... the fine men and women assigned here who made it happen," added Mr. Allee.