Incirlik puts ONW building back in ‘Lik’ business

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  As the "Lik" continues its daily mission of Ensuring Freedom's Future, Airmen from the 39th Operations Squadron, 39th Air Base Wing command post, 39th Civil Engineer Squadron and 39th Communications Squadron are helping to make that mission easier by refurbishing Squadron Operations Center No. 2 to be used for weapons training deployments. 

"The upgraded facility allows for one centralized location for visiting fighter squadrons," said Capt. James Gump, 39th OS chief of weapons and tactics and coordinator for facility upgrades. "Facilities will include an Operations Desk, Life Support rooms, offices for scheduling, maintenance, and the other various shops within a squadron, and a vault for mission planning, briefing, debriefing, and intelligence functions.  The facility could easily house two full fighter squadrons." 

The wing is spending about $300,000 to refurbish this facility that has gone mainly unused since the end of Operation Northern Watch. The decision to upgrade the facility was to increase interoperability training for fighter squadrons here for weapons training deployments. 

"Our objective is to minimize the amount of time and effort spent on facility and equipment issues, so that deploying units can maximize their training opportunities afforded by Incirlik Air Base, its local airspace, and the Konya Range complex," said Captain Gump. "Bottom line, more bang for the buck for a visiting fighter unit." 

An additional benefit of the SOC 2 improvements is its possible use as an alternate facility for the Airfield Management, Weather, Intelligence, Tower, and Radar Approach Control (RAPCON) functions of the 39th Operations Squadron, as well as an alternate command post. 

"This new facility provides much more space and communications capability over the old, rundown alternate command post," said Lt. Col. Tom Svoboda, 39th Air Base Wing command post chief. "This new alternate facility will provide a redundant capability comparable to our existing facility, ensuring the base is capable of functioning in the event the primary command post is rendered useless." 

The building is scheduled to be completed later this year and as early as January 2007, the wing expects to host fighter units for WTDs. 

"It has taken very significant cooperative efforts with the Communication Squadron, the Civil Engineer Squadron, the Contracting Squadron, the Comptroller Squadron, the Command Post, and the Security Forces Squadron to get the facility ready to meet the ABW's needs," Lt. Col. David R. Youtsey, 39th OS commander. " Team Incirlik should be very proud of the condition of the building, and its potential (once fully furnished) to support WTDs in the classic fashion that Incirlik has done in the past."