Dobbins first to test new aviation technology

Published Oct. 13, 2015
By Staff Sgt. Daniel Phelps
94th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

DOBBINS AIR RESERVER BASE, Ga. -- A team from Air Force Reserve Command arrived at Dobbins Air Reserve Base the week of Sept. 30 to test the first-of-its-kind Mobile Mission Kit with the 94th Airlift Wing.

The 94th AW became the first unit in the Air Force to test out this new system for documenting flight information that is estimated to save at least 19-million dollars in man hours. The MMK is an application installed on a tablet device that enables flight crew to input all of the information they are required to fill out on the Air Force form 781 - a flight log.

“Dobbins was chosen, first, because of their proximity to AFRC, and because the leadership of the 22nd Air Force and the 94th AW were very supportive,” said Col. Paul Webb, AFRC Chief of Mobility Operations Division. “However, the more involved reason is because it is a C-130 base, and the C-130 is a grease-board, analog culture rather than a digital culture.”

The best way to test the system is to take a culture that is used to being analog and bring it into the digital culture, Webb explained.

Form 781s are used to track flight times and help with pay, explained Staff Sgt. Chantel Benjamin, 700th Airlift Squadron aviation resource manager.

“One of the biggest changes the MMK will make is eliminating error,” Benjamin said. “No matter how good you are at your job, you will miss something. The MMK should eliminate all errors. It calculates the time, which is where we make most of our mistakes. It makes it easier for the crew members too; it tells them exactly what to do. This improves accuracy.”

Tech. Sgt. Susan Robinson, 700th AS ARMS, said the current method for filling out and processing a 781 takes around four hours per form.

“Right now you fill out the form, you hand it someone, someone has to enter that data - not only once or twice, but three or four times that same data,” said Webb. “If you enter it once on the MMK it should be up in all the data bases.”

The man hours and estimated savings for the MMK in the study didn’t take into account delays the 781 forms often encounter, only the amount of time it takes if everything in the study works correctly, Webb added. In reality, the MMK could save well over the estimated 19-million dollars.

The four hours per form is only when there are no mistakes, Benjamin added. It could easily take two or three times that if there are errors.

“It can take weeks if we run into errors, because as Reservists, the person who may know how to fix the issue may not be there the next day,” she explained.

The end state is to have the various systems connected with one another, enabling each system the ability to pull the information it needs from the MMK.

Presently, ARMS folks have to look at and verify the math, and it can be slightly off, Webb said. Now, the math is built into the app. In the end, all forms used in the mission kit are built into the app. So if data is entered in once, it populates each document.

The app will also allow for all to see the data in real time, so corrections can be made in place rather than people running around.

Another benefit to the MMK is that Air Force Instructions are plugged into the coding.

On paper, people can easily make mistakes, but the app eliminates many of those opportunities; it doesn’t even open up boxes that one shouldn’t be able to fill, Webb said. So the human error piece is taken out of it. Airmen can only check off what they are qualified to select. If an error happens to be made, the MMK will flag it for correction.

Pay statuses and roles in the flight are also reflected in the app, so flyers will able to quickly and accurately be paid, he added. “We’ll also be better able to articulate to Congress why we need MPA [military personnel appropriations] dollars or RPA [reserve personnel appropriations] dollars for our flying hour program.”

The timely and accurate data provided by the MMK produces huge advantages for AFRC, Webb explained.

“We get to warehouse the data, therefore providing raw and unfiltered data to the command for decisions being made at the Congressional level,” he added “When Lt. Gen. James Jackson (AFRC commander) goes and testifies - he is competing for dollars against other the major command commanders - he now has empirical data he can use to support and articulate his arguments.”

The MMK is also very intuitive, Webb said.

The team was at the 94th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron showing some maintainers how the MMK operates, when Senior Airman Hayden Waddell came over and demonstrated how to use it without an in-depth explanation.

“On Monday, I just walked in and we were told they were implementing something new,” Waddell described. “I was doing the 781s that night, when everyone came and showed us the tablets and printers. They also had an airport so the 781 could be printed wirelessly from the tablet. It was really easy to pick up. I knew exactly what to do.”

The MMK will make the job easier because when the information is filled out, it’s sent to everyone who needs it rather than it being faxed or carried, Waddell said. The debriefing process will be smoother once everyone is on board and trained. It will also eliminate a lot of confusion because everyone will be able to see the information and review it.

“This is a huge leap,” Webb said.

The MMK will continue testing at various bases over the next few months, Webb added. The other bases currently scheduled for testing are Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina; MacDill AFB, Florida; Westover ARB, Massachusetts; and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.