An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Dover's birds fly north to roost at McGuire

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  It's about that time of year when countless species of birds begin to migrate north to roost. But up until now, we were only talking about our feathered friends, not heavy airlifters.

Team Dover's fleet of C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft and its support Airmen and equipment have temporarily moved to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, from February to August, 2016, due to the ongoing runway construction project at Dover AFB.

Since February 2015, Dover AFB's north-south Runway 01-19 has been closed to undergo a complete $98.3 million renovation. The base's other runway, 14-32, has been fully operational until now. The construction project has reached the stage in which the intersection of both runways requires work. This phase of construction has temporarily cut the length of Runway 14-32 from 12,900 feet to 6,000 feet, altering its operational capabilities for the C-5.

Runway 14-32's 6,000 feet is enough for a C-5 to safely take-off and land, but only when carrying a minimal amount of weight, cargo and fuel. For this reason, it was decided to temporarily move the C-5 fleet in order for them to ensure the continued success of the Air Force's global mobility mission. Meanwhile, Team Dover's fleet of 13 intermediate strategic and tactical airlifter C-17A Globemaster IIIs, will remain at Dover AFB, fully capable of operating on the shorter airfield.

For Dover AFB, sending its C-5s to McGuire was a natural fit.

"McGuire was chosen because they had the ramp space available and the hangar space that we needed to put our 150-plus maintainers in," said Lt. Col. Charles Throckmorton, 436th Operations Support Squadron director of operations. "And because they are an AMC base, they understand our mission and our requirements. So it was just a good fit for us."

Speaking from an aircrew prospective, Lt. Col. Matthew Husemann, 9th Airlift Squadron commander, elaborated.

"McGuire is a great place for us to operate out of because they have precision approaches, have a great runway and an awesome support system," he said. "It is just like operating out of Dover and we are supported in the same way we are at Dover up at McGuire. So it is  not a whole lot different to the aircrew in that sense."

The one thing that has changed for aircrews is the length in time of their missions.

"The difference for us is that we have to spend a little bit more time in transit, our alert sequences are a little bit longer," said Husemann. "It'll make our missions about a day longer and our local missions will be two day local mission instead of a single day."

It is anticipated that the C-5s will operate out of McGuire until this upcoming August. Because of this lengthy stay, it was necessary to move a contingent of C-5 maintainers and other support Airmen, plus their equipment. In total, 147 436th Maintenance Group Airmen, 13 Logistics Readiness Squadron Airmen and three OSS Airmen are in place at the joint base. The majority of these Airmen will remain in place until May when they will be rotated out with replacements, with a few staying the whole time until August.

While at the joint base, the 436th MXG's temporary home is a large hangar known as Big Beige, named for its obvious color and size. This facility will house Team Dover's Airmen and all of their support equipment.

Speaking on behalf of the joint base's airfield operations, Senior Master Sgt. Antonio Cooper, 305th OSS joint base superintendent of airfields, was happy to coordinate with Dover.

"We worked with the Dover team to find out what they were looking for," he said. "The most important part of this has been the two wings coming together as one to ensure the success of our global mobility mission."

McGuire has enough ramp space to hold eight C-5s on the ground at any given time, the other aircraft will be out fulfilling their global mobility mission.

Not all of Dover's C-5s have departed. For the next few months there will be one or two C-5s at Dover receiving heavy maintenance. In addition to this, one fully operational C-5 has been designated to stay behind to be used for training.

""There will be one here for the reservists, so they can do a local training missions," said Throckmorton. "We will also use that same aircraft as a ground trainer, so all of our flight safety students and any other agency that need it for training, such as maintenance or the fire department, will have access to it. So that airplane is going to be pretty busy, we are going to utilize it pretty much around the clock."