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Seven years ago, Master Sgt. Bridget Carroll of the 727th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron was part of team tasked with reducing cargo taken on an MQ-1 Predator alert package. Her proposed solution, the Digital Aircraft Link Emulator, or DALE, was recently deployed and employed for the first time. Before DALE, it would take more than 10 Airmen to accompany the package, set it up, and tow the RPA around the airfield to ensure link connections were made. Today, the DALE can be unloaded and ready for use with two Airmen in less than an hour.
Master Sgt. Mathue Snow, 78th Security Forces Squadron flight chief, received a Bronze Star Medal at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., on Sept. 9, in support of Operation Octave Shield at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya, in 2019 and 2020. In particular, he helped to fend off an attack on the base by 30 al-Shabab terrorists armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and small arms. During the initial moments of the attack, Snow rushed to the Joint Defense Operations Center, sounded the giant voice system, and quickly dispatched Defenders to their defense towers.
In July in Pelham, N.H., Senior Airman Amy Granfield, a public health technician with the 157th Medical Group, was wakesurfing on Long Pond when a fast-traveling Jet Ski crashed into the side of Granfield’s boat, knocking her, her brother, and a friend overboard. The operator and her passenger ended up in the water severely injured, and Granfield swam to get them into the boat and made a tourniquet out of a ski rope to stop major blood loss. Granfield and her party took the Jet Ski operator and passenger to shore, where they were transferred to paramedics.
The Air Force could save up to 40,000 man-hours and approximately $1 million per year, thanks to an invention from Airman 1st Class Jacob Helzer at RAF Mildenhall, U.K.—a 3D-printed “Boom Cover Tool” that makes the task of removing and installing the boom cover on a KC-135, normally a 30-minute operation, a simple one-minute task. Helzer’s tool costs roughly $200 to manufacture, and he is currently working to produce prototypes for every KC-135 at Mildenhall. After that, he hopes to contract the fabrication of a final, more durable prototype and share the Boom Cover Tool throughout the entire fleet and modify the design to be adopted for other variations of refueling aircraft.
Maj. Benjamin Saunders, of the 49th Wing at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., was named the 2021 Air Force Fighter Instructor Pilot of the Year this August, in recognition of his work developing combat-ready F-16 pilots. An instructor since 2018, Saunders teaches Airmen fresh out of Undergraduate Pilot Training how to employ fighter tactics in the F-16. He also teaches the instructors that then go on to teach other pilots.
At just 13 years old, Jaiya Patillo has already competed and won against athletes in high school and college. The 400-meter sprinter recently made history as the first middle schooler to compete against collegiate-level athletes and win the South Dakota State University’s Last Chance track meet in February 2022—and she often trains with Airmen at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., where her mother. Lt. Col. Sheree Patillo serves in the Air Force at U.S. Strategic Command. Now a 14-time Junior Olympian, Patillo won the USA Track and Field Junior Olympic Nationals in Sacramento, Calif., at the end of July.
On Sept. 7, 1st Lt. Kelsey Flannery made history, becoming the first female F-35 pilot in the Air National Guard. The process started in 2019, when the Vermont Air National Guard became the first guard unit to be assigned the F-35. The 134th Fighter Squadron selected Flannery and a small group out of hundreds to become the squadron’s newest pilots. She then attended Officer Training School, Undergraduate Pilot Training, Fighter Fundamentals, and SERE school, before finally flying the F-35 in the Air Force’s “B-course.”
With a philosophy of “unbiased genuine care, empathy, and respect to all,” Master Sgt. Crystal Bateman of the 402nd Aircraft Maintenance Group was named the 2021 Air Force First Sergeant of the Year. CMSAF JoAnne Bass presented Bateman with the award in San Antonio on Aug. 27. Selected to attend the U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy, Bateman said she overcame difficulties and depression thanks to her “family, friends, command team, various mentors, and first sergeants all over the Air Force.”