Force Multipliers: My day at Grissom Air Reserve Base

Last week I had the unique opportunity with the Hoosier PRSA Chapter to be a passenger on an in-flight refueling missing on a KC-135 at Grissom Air Reserve Base as part of the 434th Air Refueling Wing (the largest Refueling Wing in the Air Force Reserve Command) in Peru Indiana.

The experience was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.  At the end of the day, I walked away having learned much more than I expected. In addition to the flight, the day also consisted of a Crisis Communications panel in the morning (more posts on that coming soon), and a lot of social media use as we shared our real-time experience via our favorite social media outlets. I gained new perspectives on the way that social media can work for us, and a new appreciation for the U.S. Air Force.

Much like social media acts as a force multiplier to get our messages, stories and news across to the public, I learned that the 434 Air Refueling Wing (ARW) acts as a huge force multiplier for our Air Force. On this particular day, I was able to witness both.

Social Media can be used to allow others to work for us, spreading our key messages, good news and best pictures (we love our twitpic apps) to the masses. Through our friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook, and through our loyal blog readers, we are able to advertise ourselves (or our companies) and broadcast our messages to a much wider audience at a much faster rate than ever before. Throughout the day the 13 of us in the group tweeted, twitpic’ed, recorded and updated our status’. We were able to use our favorite apps to share with our friends and followers a little piece of what Grissom does on a daily basis.

Similarly, in-flight refueling missions allow the Air Force to conduct several operations much more efficiently. It allows pilots to fly longer missions and cover greater distances — bringing troops and supplies to different US military stations around the world. The 434ARW runs more of these missions per day than any other Air Force Reserve Command, acting as a huge force multiplier for the U.S. Air Force.

At 31,000 miles above the Appalachian Mountains, traveling at a ground speed of 405 mph, sitting on approx 120 thousand pounds of fuel pouring out at a rate of 6,500 pounds per minute into the C-17 flying next to us (also traveling at 406 mph)… I realized just how vital (and cool) these missions actually are, and how important the 434ARW is to the Air Force and the defense of our nation.