AMOCC ensures assets get where they are needed

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Chad Padgett
  • USAFE News Service
With more than 12 bases operating in the U.S. Air Forces in Europe, making sure airlift assets are flowing smoothly can be a challenge.

The Air Mobility Operations Control Center at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, plans, schedules, tasks and executes air mobility assets to support European Command and USAFE taskings.

“If there is a need for airlift in this theater, EUCOM establishes the requirement, then we coordinate with our users and determine exactly what needs to be moved, where it needs to be picked up and how we are going to get to the destination,” said Lt. Col. Michael Ronza, AMOCC operations officer.

The air mobility missions the AMOCC controls runs the gamut of routine channel airlift missions to complex contingency operations, many times to austere locations. It takes a coordinated effort to ensure these missions have all the necessary support in place so these USAFE aircrews can safely transit their destinations.

“There are some contingency missions, like airlift support to the Balkans, that become routine because we have been there many times and we know what to expect. Then we go down to places like Africa supporting operations in the Darfur region, and things can get a little more complicated,” said Colonel Ronza. “There are many more crosschecks we need to make to ensure the necessary support is in place to complete the mission. The mission sounds pretty simple, you’re moving Rwandan troops from point A to point B, but getting the C-130s down to the air fields we operated from, many of them austere locations, provided a challenge.”

AMOCC not only works on airlift missions, but also air refueling, aeromedical evacuation (AE), operational support airlift and air mobility support.

The AE division provides the critical link between command and control and operations and is the clinical interface with airlift operations and the Theater Patient Movement Requirements Center, also located at Ramstein.

The AE division personnel have extensive knowledge of flight physiology, airlift capability, information technology such as, operational mission planning and tasking, scheduling, and mission monitoring of airlift and AE asset to support patient movement, as well as coordination with the TPMRC.

The AE Division is especially challenged since the retirement of the C-9 Nightingale (the Air Forces’ only aircraft dedicated to AE) over two years ago, and the C-141 in October this year, to find and coordinate airlift for validated patient movement in EUCOM.

Medical patients are categorized as either; urgent, priority and routine. An urgent patient requires immediate medical attention to save life, limb or eyesight; a priority patient needs to be seen within 24 hours; and routine patients receive transport for medical care as soon as possible, typically within 72 hours.

The C-21 has become the aircraft of choice to use for moving urgent and priority patients in the USAFE theater.

“Often we must overcome the C-21’s space limitations by tailoring our AE crew size and equipment needs to the patient’s specific condition,” said Lt. Col. Bec Gober, AMOCC AE division chief. “We have transported over 130 patients this year on the C-21 compared to just over 70 this time last year. The C-21 has proven to be a capable asset.”

“It’s a team effort to execute the mobility effort in this complex theater and you have that in the AMOCC,” added Colonel Ronza. “We have a great working relationship with others in USAFE and the teamwork is evident when we’re mission complete and units return safely to homestation.”