| Debriefing |
| As
soon as the last engine was shut down maintenance personnel
immediately swarmed all over the aircraft, like bees on honey,
each with a specific job to do. It was a sight to behold, watching
everyone working on the aircraft in perfect orchestration. Highest
priority was to download the sensors from the chine bays as
quickly as possible and rush them to our Mobile Processing Center
for film development, computer processing, and analysis. After
our photo interpreters first looked over the film, they immediately
put out the Initial Photo Interpretation Report, letting everyone
know the success or failure of the intelligence we were sent
to gather. |
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At
the foot of the ladder, waiting for the crew to descend, was the
Det Commander, the maintenance supervisor, mobile crew, and the
aircraft's crew chief. Everyone was interested to hear what the
pilot and RSO had to say about how everything rand. It was a quick
debriefing, lasting about five minutes or so, depending on how many
maintenance problems the crew had with the aircraft. Often, by the
time we debriefed at the aircraft, the sensors were already downloaded
and well on their way to being processed.
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Mission
Recorder System
|
For
ease of maintenance, the aircraft was equipped with a Mission
Recorder System (MRS), that recorded every three seconds on
magnetic tape, various parameters of the aircraft and its associated
systems. After flight, maintenance removed the MRS tape and
through a computer process converted the electrical inputs into
meaningful information. The MRS tape was distributed to experts
to look over and see if anything was going wrong with their
particular system. |
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| Soon
after, we changed back into our flight suits, gathered up all our
classified materials and were off to debrief the mission. Crews attended
the operations debriefing session first. The Det Commander, Operations
Officer, fliers, mobile crew, weather personnel and mission planners
attended the debriefing to as a series of routine questions. At the
end of each debriefing, the Det Commander usually had a few words
of prais if everything went smoothly. If it didn't, we discussed our
problems and came up with ways to improve the operation next time.
When the Commander stood up to leave, everyone came to "ATTENTION!",
and we departed for the maintenance debriefing session. The maintenance
debriefing session covered all major aircraft systems, allowing maintenance
personnel to trouble-shoot and correct any discrepencies quite accurately.
Everyone else went back to their office and began filling in classified
reports that had to be sent to various agencies. |
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Return to Sortie
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| ©
Copyright
Richard Graham |
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