Rainy days don’t stop Team BLAZE

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Beaux Hebert
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  Weather can be tricky to predict and it takes highly trained professionals to read the signs and make the call to fly or not to fly.

The 14th Operations Support Squadron’s Weather Flight is charged with communicating the weather so Team BLAZE can produce pilots
and protect its resources.

“We touch everything, even the commissary,” said Staff Sgt. Ramon Curtis, Noncommissioned Officer in Charge of Mission Services. “If there is lightning within a certain distance we have to make sure the back-up generators are ready for a power outage.”

The 14th OSS Weather Flight uses different technology to cover a 300 nautical-mile area to give accurate forecasts. The 557th Weather Wing, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and the 26th Operational Weather Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, provide programs to the flight to see a plethora of different weather systems. Locally, they have radar systems used to see storm cells, as well as technology that is placeable in the middle of a thunderstorm or a tornado and see the cell core.

One of their most common tasks is answering the calls from pilots for their return weather.

“When the pilots are out at other places, they call to get their return weather to get back here,” said Staff Sgt. Aimee Boxell, Noncommissioned Officer in Charge of Airfield Services. “We are still responsible for their weather, whether they are taking off here or from another place.”

Another task for the team is resource protection from severe weather such as thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes.

A thunderstorm can have strong winds and lightning that could knockout power to the base. If the winds become too strong, they could flip planes and cause a lot of damage. Hail storms can also do a lot of damage to exposed aircraft on the flight line, which could halt pilot production. The weather team is also tasked with watching for weather formations that indicate tornadoes because on average, Mississippi has 45 tornadoes per year.

“Resource protection is a big thing,” Boxell said. “We produce the (14th Flying Training Wing) weather advisories in order to help prepare for bad weather.”

The weather team is always challenged by Mississippi’s “peculiar” weather, Boxell said. She also included that Columbus flies over 300 sorties a day, which means all of those pilots need to know their departure and landing conditions. In addition to that, the pilots in training easily confuse “weather talk” and “pilot talk.”

Even with their challenges, the weather team still manages to be a vital part in the mission to Produce Pilots, Advance Airmen and Feed the Fight.