JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas –
One of the 12th Flying Training Wing’s Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals academic classes is being streamlined so students at the 435th Fighter Training Squadron will have more time to devote to other squadron training activities.
Civilian instructors for the academic and simulator portions of IFF training came together Jan. 10-12 for an Air Force Continuous Process Improvement event to update the surface attack class, one of eight academic courses required of students who are training to be fighter pilots at the 435th FTS.
“The surface attack lesson material hadn’t been updated in a while, so we worked to streamline it and update it to provide more focused training for students,” said David Bernacki, 12th Operations Support Squadron lead IFF weapon systems civilian simulator instructor and CPI event facilitator.
Bernacki joined four other civilian instructors as well as Stan Kanno, Air Education and Training Command IFF academic programs manager, to remove inaccurate and out-of-date material in the surface attack course, which teaches IFF students how to bomb and strafe ground targets. The course is devoted to topics such as surface attack basics, continuously computing bombing systems and wind effects.
“The course comprises nine lessons with 14 of the 60 academic hours required of IFF students,” he said. “We used CPI’s eight-step process to reduce the time of the course by one and a half to two hours.”
The most important countermeasure developed was updating the lesson courseware, Bernacki said.
“We deleted 11 percent of the non-value-added training material and updated 34 percent of all the material taught,” he said.
Among the other improvements identified were updating videos for the course and establishing an AETC-wide surface attack working group to review academic courseware on a periodic basis.
“The CPI event provided the team an opportunity look at the course holistically,” said Brian Harper, 12th OSS IFF simulator instructor. “We were able to root out duplications, smooth out logic flows and identify dated material. This should greatly improve the students’ understanding of the course concepts and information in a more effective way. The end result should provide better student training and save manpower resources.”
Travis Reeves, 12th OSS IFF simulator instructor, called the latest CPI event “a great success for the Air Force and IFF training.”
“With the implemented changes, there will be a savings of more than 400 man-hours per year along with a better content in training material,” he said. “The 435th FTS will receive a better trained student earlier, allowing more flexibility due to the increased program flying training requirement from the Air Force due to force structure shortfalls.”
Paul Olde, 12th OSS IFF simulator instructor, said the improvements identified should “improve the content, flow and efficiency” of the surface attack course.
The CPI initiative is an eight-step approach to identify waste, focus activities on eliminating it and maximize resource to satisfy other requirements. In addition to a facilitator and team members, CPI events include “champions,” who dedicate resources, assets and people to an initiative, and “process owners,” who lead an organization or group, a team lead and other members.
This month’s CPI event featured Kanno as champion and process owner, Bernacki as facilitator and Harper, Reeves, Olde and Jose Colon as team members.
“This is the fourth CPI event we’ve done since 2014 that helps the 435th FTS conduct its mission, but the first for academics,” Bernacki said. “The changes will help the other IFF bases, too.”