MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- -- The Air Force disperse $64 million this year among individual units encouraging Airmen to come up with creative ways to better their units.
McConnell received $450,000 of these funds. Each squadron here will have around $10,000 to fuel innovation and modernize the force at the unit level.
Team McConnell members began brainstorming ideas to present to their commanders. Starting with the front-line Airmen, those at the lowest level were given the opportunity to voice their ideas.
The 349th Air Refueling Squadron submitted a proposal to use its share to turn its offices into active work spaces. They hope to purchase exercise equipment for the squadron to enable physical activity before and after long confined flights while doing office work.
The 22nd Maintenance Squadron hopes to use their funds to invest in new fuel cell equipment, as well as a new inspection tracking system. The fuel cell will replace their current flashlights with LED rechargeable explosion-proof body lights in order to free their hands up while working and get their jobs done more quickly and efficiently.
The MXS also plans to purchase a 70-inch monitor for one of their major repair hangars. This monitor will replace a white board in displaying information about checklists, inbound parts and help the dock chiefs see which phases have been completed during periodic inspections and major repairs.
Additionally, the 22nd Civil Engineer Squadron submitted a request for virtual reality headsets to use for training scenarios allowing shops to reduce training cost and time while increasing training environment flexibility.
Squadron commanders filtered through these and many other of their Airmen’s submissions and chose those that would make their units better to raise to the next level for approval.
“The squadron innovation funds are a fantastic resource to finally put the power of innovation back into the hands of the squadron commanders across the Air Force,” said Mitchell.
Wing leadership has begun examining proposals and distributing the proper funding to the squadrons.