The White Falcon - 19.03.1971, Blaðsíða 6

Page 6
THE WHITE FALCON
March 19, 1971
A big department
to do a big job
By SN Sol Kruger
Let Air Operations put you in the
passenger seat.
To most people Air Ops means little
more than a flight ticket. But their
responsibilities are on a much wider
scale.
Air Ops' functions consist of working
with and repairing electronic gear, main-
taining aircraft, scheduling of flights,
booking of passengers, firefighting, and
photography. Six divisions of Air Ops work
to accomplish these myriad of tasks.
Ground Electronics Maintenance (GEM)
maintains and repairs a great variety of
electronic gear around the naval station
and their primary function rests in com-
munication and flight coordination. The
transmitter site, receiver site, "Vortac"
site (VHF Omnidirectional Range and Tact-
ical Air Navigation), ground control ap-
proach unit, Tacan (Tactical Air Naviga-
tion system), and KF Beacon are all under
GEM's immediate control.
The transmitter and receiver sites
work in relay with the control tower in
direct communication with all incoming
and outgoing flights. All transmissions
going through both sites are recorded on
a 24-hour basis, as a safety precaution.
The Vortac site houses the entire Tacan
and VOR system. These are navigational
aids which send up signals to pilots,
both commercial and military, as a guide
AN Gregg M. Lutz operates the crash phone in a sim- AC3 Billy E. Tucker writes the status of the sup-
ulated emergency exercise. port aircraft coining back from H-3.