187th Fighter Wing hosts needed course for Intelligence personnel.

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Matthew Garrett
  • 187th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
The 187th Fighter Wing hosted the first ever Air National Guard (ANG) Intelligence Fighter Training Unit (IFTU) class at Montgomery Regional Air National Guard Base in Montgomery, Ala., Aug. 21, 2015. The 12 day course had 14 students from seven different ANG bases.

IFTU training for intelligence personnel is typically held at Luke AFB, Ariz., and lasts five weeks. The course analyzes how all the different weapon systems in the Air Force integrate into the F-16 Fighting Falcon in order to effectively operate in combat.

"Each intelligence student is required to have initial qualification training to be a full up intelligence troop. They have to go to Luke AFB for Initial Qualification Training (IQT)," said Capt. Shawn Daley, Senior Intelligence Officer. "Mission Qualification Training is the follow on to be combat mission ready."

Training at Luke AFB is limited by available seats. The limited number of seats has created a backlog of intelligence personnel who still need training.

Daley said, "There are 84 seats per year for all the Air Force intelligence personnel. The ANG needs 54 people trained right now, and that's not including the new people coming in through the pipeline. So we asked ourselves, 'why can't we do it here'?"

Daley was instrumental in getting the course set up at the 187th Fighter Wing.

"In order to be Air Force compliant, we had to go to the National Guard Bureau (NGB) and ask for a waiver," said Daley. "Instead of going to Luke AFB, we were going to do our own in-house IQT. NGB had to present the waiver and sign off on it. Then they sent it to Air Combat Command and Air Education and Training Command to sign off on the waiver. Administratively, we had to go through all those channels to make this legal."

This is the first time the Air National Guard has done an F-16 IFTU class where people have come from ANG bases from all over the country to participate.

By hosting the IFTU course at the 187th Fighter Wing, Daley was able to save the NGB $112,000.

"Now you are going to have intelligence members that are going to be able to continue their training, get more knowledge on the type of systems they need to know in order to be combat mission ready, so that way our intelligence personnel can help the pilots be more effective," said Daley.