HISTORY
MERCS – FASTER, BIGGER, HIGHER, MORE COMFORTABLE

Mid-80s
Early Development of the ECX to E-6A
Navy inquiries to industry
ECX becomes the E-6A
E-6 training at Waco and Huntsville
PEP for pilots and flight engineers
First E-6 ops in Hawaii

1990s
E-6A introduction and early ops, community relocation and consolidation in OK, start of the E-6B
E-6 alert at Travis AFB
VQ-4 start of E-6 ops
Tinker AFB homeport, construction, consolidation, relocation
Continuous airborne coverage becomes continuous alert coverage
Airborne Command Post conversion

2000s
Airborne Command Post ops to Operation Iraqi Freedom

STORIES

There was once a time when TACAMO had a small fleet of C-12s aircraft. “Cowboy 08 and Cowboy 27″ were 161308 and 161327. CDR Joe SanAgustin and LCDR Frank Klein worked a project for the wing to obtain two C-12s from Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific to support the TACAMO Wing needs to move crews and people. After the justification was approved in 1996, a hangar was located on Tinker AFB that formerly was the F-16 ‘hush house’ where engine maintenance and engine turns had been performed. Crews had to obtain tower clearance to travel to and from the hangar as it was literally at mid-field. Three civilian contractor maintenance men were provided as part of the C-12 Navy-wide contract. Pilots, Naval Flight Officers, and Aircrewmen from the Wing completed C-12 training and began to fly in late 1995 and flew for Naval Aviation Logistics Organization (NALO) ferrying TACAMO, USAF, US Army, Marines and some Navy personnel all over the United States until mid 1997.
Pilots- Tim Pedersen, Mark Cordiero, Bob Buzzell, and Karl Storm
Copilots- Anthony Bruno, Brian Myers, and Vern Lochausen
Aircrewmen- Tom Usher, Gary Fravert, and… Scott Mitchell

HERC or MERC. Pick an era, tell your story – who, what, when, where, how and what makes it significant or funny.

Send your stories to: trcker@gmail.com