917th Wing Sets Buff Smoke on Fire

  • Published
  • By Capt. Newman Robertson
  • 917th Wing Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AFB LA --  Best Squadron, Best Crew, Best Aircraft Maintenance Unit and Best Crew Chiefs. 

The 917th Wing took top honors at the five day Buff Smoke competition held here at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., from December 1-4, 2008 with an awards ceremony held on Friday, December 5. 

Buff Smoke is a competition hosted by 2nd Bomb Wing and is designed to help B-52 aircrews, crew chiefs, load crews, and maintainers sharpen their combat skills and has been held off and on since 2005. It incorporates all the variables required to launch a B-52, from the maintenance personnel to air crew who perform the actual mission which includes dropping bombs, using electronic countermeasures, and the timing for the mission. 

All of these variables are graded, and the inspectors use the scores to determine what would be a successful combat mission. Participants included the 96th Bomb Squadron, 49th Test Squadron, 20th Bomb Squadron, 11th Bomb Squadron, and the 93rd Bomb Squadron. 

"I am very proud of our team," said Col. Ed Walker, Commander, 917th Wing, "This is both timely and illustrative of the credibility the Air Force Reserve Command and 10th Air Force have with 8th Air Force. I am especially pleased with the maintenance recognition." For the 93rdBomb Squadron, this was their first time competing in Buff Smoke since its inception. 

For Lt. Col Keith Schultz, Commander, 93rd BS, winning best squadron came as no surprise. "It's a great honor to win the Best Squadron Award," he said. "It is something I expected from my people all along. They have always been the cream of the crop; things that other people find challenging we find as second nature." 

"We had heard about Buff Smoke, but weren't officially notified until approximately one month prior to the actual completion," he added, "We had to scramble a little bit to try and get as much information on how it was graded and the rules of engagement to make sure we complied with everything." 

Lt. Col. Steve Smith, 93rd BS, Assistant Director of Operations, and radar navigator for Scalp 93, the call sign for the team that won the Best Crew Award, couldn't agree more. 
"None of us won any of the individual awards, but as a whole we won best crew because we did fairly well in every aspect of the competition, and we were consistent," he said. "We came up with an excellent plan that none of the other crews came up with in order to defeat the threats that we were faced with," he added. 

"Our crew chiefs are the best in the business," said, 93rd BS and co-pilot with Scalp 93, "Getting our jets from them made our jobs much easier." Other members of Scalp 93 were Lt. Cols Rob Burgess, Dennis Heinz, and Rick Holt. 

"I am proud of our squadron for what they have done," said Lt. Col. Dwayne Slack, Commander, 917th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, whose squadron took the Best Aircraft Maintenance Unit Award, "Their hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence is not only a reflection on this squadron, but the entire 917th Wing." 

As for Capt. Stewart Martin, 917th AMXS, Maintenance Officer, getting the Best AMU award came as no surprise. "I knew we had good people and the expertise, and I knew we put together a good team to go to Buff Smoke," he said. "When I saw the slide go up, I thought yeah the guys came through again." 

Good people, good teams, and expertise seemed to be the order of the day for the Buff Smoke competition. Each squadron sent their best crew chiefs. In the end, there could be only one, and the 917th AMXS took the Best Crew Chiefs award. 

"It's an honor to win the Best Crew Chiefs Award," said Tech. Sgt. Preston Bryan, Dedicated Crew Chief. "I have worked with active duty, and they are a bunch of hard working guys." 

Tech. Sgt. James Dudash, Assistant Crew Chief, 917th AMXS, agrees. "Active duty crew chiefs are highly skilled and pride themselves on being the best at what they do," he said. "This award is such a great honor because we competed against the best." The third member of this team was Staff Sgt. Bradley Beames, Assistant Crew Chief. 

The fifth award for Top Weapons Load Crew went to Staff Sgts. Andrew King and Ruth Paris, and Senior Airmen Joshua Stone and Michael Nichter of the 11th Bomb Squadron. "We went in and gave it our best," said Staff Sgt. Andrew King, Weapons Load Team Chief, 11th Aircraft Maintenance Unit. "It was an honor to win and represent our AMU," he added. 

The 2nd Bomb Wing, received its share of recognition as well at the awards ceremony with several members from the 20th Bomb Squadron bringing home individual awards. Individual awards were as follows; Best Electronic Warfare Officer, Lt. Matt Sanders, Best Time Control, Lt. Georges Dewilde, Best Pilot Team, Maj. Mike Colina and Lt. Garrett Houk, and Best Bomb Drop, Capt. Michael Matthews.