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by Senior Airman Aaron-Forrest Wainwright
86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
The giant voice screams “Exercise, exercise, exercise!” The process begins, recalls start and Airmen ready their gear in preparation for the impending events.
The wing inspection teams are the members responsible for the inspections we constantly prepare for, supporting the commander’s No. 1 priority of readiness. They do this with two types of inspections: compliance and readiness.
Compliance inspections are at the group and squadron levels, while readiness inspections focus on how the wing integrates all of the squadron’s and group’s capabilities into the mission.
This enables and assures the wing’s strategic capabilities by providing combat airlift and operating the base.
“We plan, coordinate and conduct inspections to strengthen the commander’s ability to focus on our most important missions and to give him answers to the most important questions,” said Capt. Drumarie Grandon, 86th Airlift Wing exercise and inspections coordinator. “We ensure the wing commander is sufficiently informed in order to assess risk and identify areas of improvement.”
Conducting wing readiness inspections, the inspector general evaluates current operations, eliminates the need of unrealistic exercise scenarios and lessens the demand on wing assets during times of opportunity.
The IG has been operating a new inspection system since the beginning of the year, which allows commanders to better and more efficiently identify, prioritize and mitigate problems specific to their mission.
This new construct was put in place to better assess units and ensure they are meeting standards.
“First and foremost, we had to create a whole new inspection system,” said Col. Scott Morris, 86th AW IG. “Air Force Instruction 90-201 was completely rewritten, and we had to create the entire program from scratch.”
The IG had to change how they approached inspections. The old method dealt with
inspections as a way to find and fix problems.
With the new inspection system, units are encouraged to let the IG know where the problems lie so the IG can help push the commander’s problems or deficiencies up to the level where it can be addressed.
“The only way for issues and problems to be solved is to make sure the right people know about them,” Grandon said.
