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C-130 News: New C-130 wing takes flight at Dyess AFB


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The C-130 mission at Dyess Air Force Base got a boost Thursday when the 317th Airlift Group under command of Stephen L. Hodge took a bow, then immediately was reborn as the 317th Airlift Wing under Col. David L. Owens.

2017-07-08 Dyess.jpg

The C-130 mission at Dyess Air Force Base got a boost Thursday when the 317th Airlift Group under command of Stephen L. Hodge took a bow, then immediately was reborn as the 317th Airlift Wing under Col. David L. Owens.

Hodge, who had commanded the Airlift Group from August 2015, said the change represented a “momentous day for combat airlift and the C-130.”

In the Air Force, wings, usually commanded by a colonel, have distinct missions, with specific and significant scopes.

Dyess now has two wings, including the 7th Bomb Wing commanded by Col. David M. Benson, who also is base commander.

The bomb wing's mission is to provide airmen and air power for the B-1B and is the Air Force's only B-1B formal training unit. 

The airlift group's size and scope warranted designation as an operational wing as it "continuously generates and employs C-130J combat power," according to information provided by Dyess.

As commander of the new 317th Airlift Wing, Owens is responsible for organizing, training, and equipping 1,200 personnel who operate, maintain and sustain 28 C-130 aircraft.

There are four active-duty C-130 wings in the Air Force, he said after the ceremony.

“I’ve been in the Air Force 21 years, and I’ve had the honor of commanding three times,” Owens said. “I’ve commanded the squadron level, I just got done commanding at the group level in Washington. And this is the tip of the iceberg, I guess – I’m getting to, one, be a wing commander, but, two, have an ability to stand-up a wing. And we get to kind of craft it, and we get to grow it, and it’s going to be a blast.”

The 317th Airlift Group was made up of the 39th and 40th Airlift Squadrons, the 317th Maintenance Squadron and the 317th Operations Support Squadron.

The 317th Operations Group, now under Col. James R. Hackbarth, and the 317th Maintenance Group, under Col. William G. Maxwell Jr., were activated Thursday, elevating those squadrons.

Dyess’ C-130s have been at the base for more than 20 years, Owens said, with a thriving and successful relationship with the base’s bomb wing.

“They are the most tactically sound C-130 unit in the Air Force,” he said. “And so we’re just putting a wing on top of this, and we’re going to try to grow it and make it even better.”

Owens said little if anything should change for the current pilots and maintainers.

“We’re going to still come to work, we’re going to do our thing and we’re going to fly that beautiful airplane all around the world,” he said.

Owens said he wanted to see the wing continue to innovate, noting Dyess had traditionally been a model for such.

“Everybody looks at Dyess to see what Dyess has always done, and they’ll continue to look at what Dyess will do,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Giovanni K. Tuck, commander of the 18th Air Force at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, compared the ceremony to a “four-part dance.”

A deactivation by itself tends to be bittersweet, he said.

“(But) a wing activation from a group, it’s amazingly special,” he said.

After the ceremony, Tuck said a wing gives its commander an opportunity for responsibility and authority such as other wings in the Air Force enjoy.

“By having it be a group in the past, it’s just not given it that last umph, that last opportunity to say hey, we’ve got (28) airplanes on this ramp, we’ve got maintainers, operators, civilians, and they make it all happen,” he said. “The reason why it’s an important day today is because it makes sense for us to do, it right-sizes what this unit ought to be in terms of a full-blown wing, and it gets the resources and authorizations where it needs to be.”  

The deactivation and subsequent elevation have been in the works “for quite some time,” Tuck said.

Source: http://www.gosanangelo.com/story/news/local/2017/07/08/new-c-130-wing-takes-flight-dyess-afb/461991001/

Brian Bethel , Abilene Reporter- News Published 1:43 p.m. CT July 8, 2017

Image: Lockheed Martin 


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