Proper Alignment for Flightline Maintenance

Days before the kick-off of another Air Force reorganization, the US military's primary air arm experienced a changing of the guard. For the new Secretary of the Air Force and new Air Force Chief of Staff, one of the first orders of business was to halt a reorganization that once again had the movement of the flightline maintainers to the fighter squadron as a primary directive. General Schwartz's decision to stay within the confines of the Combat Wing Organization placed another pause in the tug-of-war between the two camps which are characterized by the views of Gen Bill Creech and Gen Tony McPeak on the proper location for flightline maintenance. The McPeak structure focused on balancing the levels of leadership responsibility within the wing organization and strongly emphasized the prestige of the fighter pilot-led organization. General Creech's organizational structure focused on the need to organize for war. In his description of the Combat Oriented Maintenance Organization, he explained that the organizational structure trains wartime leaders. Gen Creech believed strongly in squadron identity. He also emphasized the need for units to organize in peacetime as they would deploy and fight in wartime. There will always be varying views to the previously stated questions. However, the Air Force owes it to its people to select one flightline organizational structure, perfect it, and put it in place to stand the test of time, ideologies, personalities, and changing of Air Force leadership. The organizational structure that best supports the right alignment for flightline maintenance should be one where trained, educated, and experienced experts are available when things do not go as planned. That organization is one where maintenance is centralized under single O-6 responsible for all maintenance in the flying wing; the one envisioned, standardized, and perfected by Gen Creech.