AC&W Technical Training Keesler AFB, MS

"The price of a combat ready Air Force is the Air Training Command." This statement by Lt. General James E. Briggs, Commander of Air Training Command, is a reminder that the most sophisticated weapon system in the world is useless without intelligent, highly trained personnel to support, maintain and operate it. The task of providing these personnel is a never ending one, and Keesler, the largest technical training center in Air Training Command, is graduating these essential specialists at a rate of 24,000 per year. On any given day approximately 13,000 students attend classes in some 85-90 courses.

Training courses at Keesler vary in length from 4 days for a few familiarization courses to 51 weeks for the Ground Electronics Officer Course. The average course length is 21 weeks. Officer training is provided in the field of electronic warfare, air traffic control, weapons control (SAGE system) and communications-electronics. Staff level training is also provided in the latter three areas. The airmen courses train personnel as ground, airborne and intercept radio operators, maintenance repairmen and technicians for all forms of ground communications equipment, heavy ground radar and airborne radio and radar equipment. In addition, personnel are trained to function as air traffic controllers and to operate ground control approach, radar control approach and aircraft control and warning equipment. Many of the courses are in operation 18 hours per day to accomodate three shifts of instruction.

Keesler`s role in our nation`s defense is destined to be even more vital and dramatic in the future. In the time you take for a coffee break, enemy forces could be upon us destroying our capability to retaliate. This minimal warning time imposes a requirement for great speed and absolute reliability in our communications system. This requirement demands perfection of design and maintenance TODAY! Space vehicles and weapons of tomorrow will require an even wider variety and degree of skills. Electronic computers which we now have will be replaced by even more sophisticated models, but we will still require one indispensable element--trained men. This then is Keesler`s role--to prepare the man to perform effectively in an Aerospace

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