1st ASF back in the saddle for deployed operations Published April 16, 2009 By Lt. Col. Rich Curry 507th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., -- After starting conversion to the Challenger 601 aircraft a little over one year before, crews from the 1st Aviation Standards Flight returned to supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom for the first time in over two years. The 1st ASF works in tandem with the Federal Aviation Administration, performing flight inspections of navigational-aid radar and instrument procedures at military and civilian installations in the United States and overseas. The flight operates from the Will Rogers International World Airport, Oklahoma City, and augments the Air Force Flight Standards Agency Detachment 1, the on-site active-duty unit. "The Hawker aircraft we were flying were pulled from the desert mission when the Challenger aircraft were fitted with defensive systems to (lessen) the MANPAD threat," said 1st ASF Commander Lt. Col. Randall Peterson. Man-portable air-defense systems are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. They typically use infra-red guidance and are a threat to low-flying aircraft. "Due to the small amount of aircraft available for training, we delayed the conversion until we had the assets available to get the crews trained," the colonel said. The deployment was originally scheduled as a six-week mission with crews swapping out every two weeks. The first month was the Reserves' responsibility. "We completed inspections on over 80 facilities plus all the associated instrument procedures. We also brought 15 of those facilities up to the same standards they would need to meet in the U.S.," the colonel said. "This is an ongoing priority as we work on nation building and the prospect of transferring responsibility for these facilities to the host nations," Colonel Peterson added. "I am very proud of my crews since we finished 99 percent of all the work allowing the third crew to only spend one day in OIF AOR and be redirected to priority work in the Pacific region." In all, the 1st ASF crews flew more than 140 hours in 27 days on the single aircraft. Each of the two reserve crews were supplemented with a crew member from their active duty sister unit to provide experience and replace a sick Airman. "This worked well since we hadn't been in the theater for some time nor had operated out of the bases used on this trip," Colonel Peterson said. His flight learned many lessons while deployed and added that they "look forward to returning to the deployment cycle we followed in years past."