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372nd FTD Instructors conduct F-16 to F-35 conversion training

  • Published
  • By Julie Svoboda
  • 82nd Training Wing
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  

As Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units replace F-16 jets with the F-35s, they need people on the ground who keep the jets in the air.  F-35 instructors from the 82nd Training Wing’s 372nd Training Squadron field training detachments do conversion training for seasoned F-16 maintainers from these units.

Master Sgt. Alejandro Diaz, 372nd F-35 Training Manager, recruits F-35 instructors from seven field training detachments across the United States and overseas to work as a 10-person team to teach the F-16 to F-35 conversion courses.

“The F-35 is the future,” he said. “So, they are pretty much setting the foundation for these National Guard and reserve units that are new to the fifth-generation world. They're the ones teaching them exactly what needs to get done.”

Diaz ensures the bases slated for conversion have the necessary equipment as well as time with the operational aircraft used for training, then sends out a request for instructors.

Staff Sgt. Maxwell Gick, Detachment 3 F-35 Crew Chief Instructor stationed at Hill AFB, has been an instructor for nearly two years. When the opportunity to branch out to the F-16 to F-35 conversion training opened, he volunteered.

“It's a cool opportunity, going out and actually interacting with the reservist counterparts who are learning F-35s because it's always fun teaching individuals who have been maintainers on different airframes,” he said. “I’m also learning about their frame while teaching them about the only airframe that I've ever worked on. It's neat seeing the similarities and differences.”

Gick said instructing experienced maintainers is different than working with early-career maintainers, so he considers his audience and peppers the lessons with personal anecdotes from the flightline to make the content more engaging and interesting. The goal of the courses, though, remains the same—mission readiness.

“We are preparing the individual to deploy with this airframe, because it's a very real and very frequent thing that happens with the F-35,” he said. “And that deployment aspect of the training is what we really try to focus on because it's all real-world and we try to give them as much information so that when they do deploy, they'll be able to work on the aircraft properly.”

Tech. Sgt. Hunter Glasco, Det. 216 F-35 Avionics Instructor stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, United Kingdom, recently finished his first conversion tasking as the Conversion Project Officer. He was both an instructor and a leader for nine other instructors.

“For me, the most rewarding component of the tasking was in just 10 weeks, I and the nine other instructors took a unit who had very little knowledge and experience of operating as an F-35 Maintenance Squadron, and equipped them with knowledge, experiences, and endless amounts of data to prepare them to go on to gain their Initial Operations Capability certification,” he said. “This is a critical step for a unit to eventually become fully combat operational. In total we graduated 53 transitional courses with a total of 304 students, in just 68 days.”

Instructors from the 372nd TRS FTDs have completed conversion training for three ANG bases with two more scheduled for next year.