JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas –
A little more than a year ago, the fuselage of a C-17 Globemaster II departed Joint Base San Antonio-
Randolph on a flatbed truck bound for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and its new mission at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine as the service’s first fully functioning aeromedical evacuation trainer.
The aeromedical evacuation trainer, which provides a realistic environment for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other medical professionals to hone their skills, exemplified the handiwork and technical expertise of the Department of Defense civilians and contractors who belong to the 502nd Trainer Development Squadron at JBSA-Randolph and are an integral part of the Air Force’s
training mission.
“The men and women of the 502nd TDS care deeply about ensuring that the products they produce are of the utmost quality,” said Kevin Haley, 502nd TDS director. “They understand that the trainers that we build will enhance the skills and efficiency of those that place themselves in harm’s way. When the Airmen that have honed their capabilities by using one of our trainers are sent into real-world situations, the result is lives are saved. Knowing this creates an attitude of overcoming obstacles and problems in order to deliver a product that exceeds the expectations of our customers.”
The 502nd TDS’ footprint covers some 70,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehousing, industrial and administrative space in Hangar 74 and buildings 84, 241 and 245.
The squadron, part of the 502nd Security Forces and Logistics Support Group, serves Air Education and Training Command and other Air Force and Department of Defense units, as well as some foreign nations, providing essential devices for flying, fighter, air mobility, technical and other training missions. Those devices benefit numerous career fields, from pilots, navigators and emergency responders to maintainers, weapons and cargo loaders, radio operators and flight engineers.
The squadron’s work is multifaceted: They essentially start from scratch, designing the training devices, fabricating parts for them and building, installing and often maintaining them. Their resume is impressive and lengthy: the B-1B Armament Systems Trainer, the C-17 Cargo Load Trainer, C-130 and HH-60 Aeromedical Evacuation Trainers, the Advanced Air National Guard Joint Terminal Attack Controller Training System and the Multi-Mission Crew Trainer to support Air National Guard, to name a few.
The B-1B Armament Systems Trainer, completed about 20 years ago, was especially noteworthy because it saved the government nearly $120 million and gave trainer development a “shot in the arm” in terms of equipment infrastructure and manpower, said Paul Ramsay, 502nd TDS design and development supervisor.
“The project resulted in sophisticated trainers that are still very much in service today, and also significantly enhanced trainer development’s design and manufacturing capabilities to provide a long-lasting boost to the unit’s ability to accomplish subsequent projects at a similar level of size and complexity,” he said. “Following and because of the B-1B AST project, trainer development has been able to continue leveraging the expanded infrastructure to benefit the Air Force and DOD with a legacy of highly capable trainers.”
A reduction in manpower following the B-1B AST project did not deter trainer development from its mission, Ramsay said.
“Trainer development has both maintained a core of highly capable manpower that flexibly expands and contracts, based on the requirements of current customer funded projects,” he said.
The 502nd TDS’ workforce is smaller in numbers than it’s been in the past, with 40 DOD civilians and eight contractors, but they often wear many hats.
“We have a small workforce, so this causes many to be responsible for a wide breadth of knowledge,” said Keith Seguin, 502nd TDS program manager. “As an example, a project manager needs to know about technology, funding and accounting, requirements, design, manufacturing, some contracting and also be able to interact with customers and subject-matter experts.”
The squadron’s capabilities range from mechanical design and development, computer-aided design of mechanical components and electronic design and development to machining, structural fabrication and welding.
The training devices achieve a high level of sophistication, as exemplified by the C-17 Aeromedical Evacuation Trainer, which has the ability to replicate in-flight and ground conditions such as sound, vibration and temperature.
While much of the work is accomplished in-house, the squadron reaches out to the industry on a regular basis for highly technical design, unique manufacturing and software solutions, said Joseph Domeier, 502nd TDS project manager.
The squadron’s current workload consists of 22 projects, Domeier said.
“That’s been normal for the past five years,” he said.
One of those projects is building T-6 cockpit simulators to assist the 558th Flying Training Squadron’s remotely piloted aircraft mission.
“That project definitely has a lot of our focus,” Domeier said. “We will have finished 16 simulators by the end of the current fiscal year.”
The 502nd TDS continues to build and refine Bárány chairs, devices that replicate flight environment phenomena and help prepare students for aircrew qualification, in both motorized and nonmotorized versions, said Roger Davila, 502nd TDS project manager.
“We make powered Bárány chairs so aerospace physiology instructors can control the speed of the chair,” he said. “With the nonpowered chairs, it’s hard to keep a constant speed by hand, so having a powered chair helps the instructors.”
Ramsay called working at the 502nd TDS “both rewarding and challenging.”
“Every project is different with its own management and technical dimensions,” he said. “It’s a very special thing to work with the comparatively small but highly capable and forward-thinking group of professionals who are my co-workers. Time goes by fast when you have a multitude of urgent projects for which you must rely on one another to conceptualize and carry out all the tasks required for success.”