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***image1***In an era where air mobility operations have taken a more prominent role in the sky, no command is more vital than U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
USAFE’s air mobility operations are vast, extending from the northern tip of Europe down to the bottom of Africa, and are in direct support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.
In addition to supporting the war, many high-profile missions are supported by USAFE, including four presidential visits, recovery of Soyuz crews and a space shuttle launch in 2005.
With such a vast array of crucial missions, USAFE, just like the human body, needs a heart to pump life into all of its operations. The heart of USAFE’s air mobility operations is housed by the 16th Air Force and is simply called the Air Mobility Operations Control Center or AMOCC.
Created in 1997 after former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown was killed in a plane crash, the AMOCC was set in place to maximize the safety and effectiveness of air mobility operations.
All USAFE air mobility operations operated by or flying through the theater are controlled by the AMOCC.
The mission of the AMOCC includes planning, scheduling, tasking and executing USAFE’s air mobility assets in support of European Command and USAFE taskings.
“The majority of daily operational missions during the Global War on Terrorism have shifted to mobility ops and a lot of people are still coming to grips with that,” said Col. Phil Bossert, AMOCC commander. “About 90 to 95 percent of USAFE’s daily operational missions are air mobility taskings.”
The AMOCC is an intertwined system of divisions that contains active-duty, civilians and reservists from 24 different career fields. Each division contains a vital part of the AMOCC’s mission.
“We have a great cross-functional machine that works extremely well together to get the airlift mission complete,” said Senior Master Sgt. Wayne Daubert, AMOCC superintendant.
Six main divisions make up the AMOCC; the Contingency/Airlift Operations division, the Aeromedical Evacuation division, the Tanker and Operational Support Airlift division, the Command and Control division, the Flight Management division and the Logistics division.
These divisions are then broken down into smaller branches and together they work to plan and execute nearly 100 missions per week; however, these divisions will change as the AMOCC completes its transition into the Air Mobility Division of the 32nd Air Operations Center in the coming months.
The AMOCC has 52 taskable aircraft that are placed throughout the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall, the 86th Airlift Wing here and the 309th Airlift Squadron in Chievres, Belgium.
“We are truly a one-stop shop; we have Airmen who specialize in airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation, operational support airlift and air mobility support,” said Sergeant Daubert. “Their commitment to the mission helped the AMOCC get selected as the 2004 USAF Small Unit Command Post of the Year.”
