Air Force's newest ISR platform

  • Published
  • By TSgt Mike Slater
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. --  A year ago, the MC-12 was just an idea. The Air Force needed to provide more of one of its most vital contributions to the joint fight...intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or ISR. The concept was to take a readily available civilian airframe and outfit it with ISR capabilities. Now this program has gone from drawing board to deployment, and in record time. 

Lt. Col. David Maher, MC-12 System Management Chief said, "Normal acquisition takes anywhere between ten to thirty years to design an aircraft, to build it, and to field it; we've done this entire program in less than nine months. It's an amazing feat that the Air Combat Command team has been able to accomplish. " 

"ISR is a core Air Force mission," said Lt. Gen. Gary North, 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central commander. "Our Airmen know how important ISR capacity, capability and integration are in combat operations. The MC-12 enhances and compliments the entire ISR umbrella from the continuum of space down to small UAVs and will integrate in a seamless fashion into the scheme of maneuver in the processing, exploitation and dissemination of intelligence at all required levels in the battlespace."

The MC-12 flew its first combat mission June 10. Its presence directly affects the safety and security of coalition ground forces. 

"We provide a mission called over-watch and convoy escort," said Lt. Col. Phil Stewart, 362d Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron commander. "So imagine if you were riding around in a hum-vee in a convoy in Iraq, you would want to see exactly what was on the other side of the hill. Well, now you can." 

Not only does the MC-12 provide ground forces valuable information in an asymmetric battlespace, it provides that information when it is needed the most. 

"We'll be able to provide full motion video to the boots on the ground in real time so they can affect their mission instantaneously," said Colonel Maher. 

The MC-12 is a high priority project for both the Department of Defense and the Air Force. "The Air Force jumped in with both feet and we fielded a weapons system in less than a year, from on the blueprints to rubber on the ramp, and that's an incredible feat," Colonel Stewart said. 

"We're excited to get downrange and make our impact. We're very excited to do our part and contribute to the joint fight," said Lt. Col. Brad Wensel, 362nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron Director of Operations.

There is more to standing up a weapon system than deciding what capabilities it needs to provide and then building it. The MC-12 team drafted the regulations and Air Force Instructions to support the MC-12 and its mission. They also stood up a schoolhouse at Key Field, a Mississippi Air National Guard base near Meridian, Mississippi, and designed a syllabus to train the MC-12 pilots and sensor operators for the schoolhouse. The MC-12 aircrews are made up of volunteers from throughout the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserves and active duty Air Force making it a total-force effort. 

"When I saw the capabilities of the aircraft, I realized it was a tremendous opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that the Air Force is going to be using in an enduring mission," said 1st Lt Brandon Jones, recent graduate of the first-ever MC-12 flight training class "I realized it was something I wanted to do, and help the warfighter on the ground in a way that is not being done at the present time." 

This program was dubbed the Project Liberty Program as a nod to a World War II effort that quickly built and transitioned commercial ships into the fight in Europe, much like what the Air Force was able to do with the MC-12. The Air Force plans to increase the MC-12 inventory to 37 by 2010.