Air Force Staff Sgt. Ryan Amador, center, poses with his Project Weapon team at the Aether Sprint innovation competition in St. Louis, March 28, 2024. (Airman 1st Class Sydney Franklin)
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — The Air Force recently chose two grassroots projects to streamline bomb-loading and weapons system maintenance on warplanes across the service.
MustangWERX, the innovation workshop formed at Osan in November, sponsored one team member from each project during a premier Air Force pitch event in St. Louis in March.
Project Weapon and Project CLAWS were primarily developed by teams at air bases in Germany and New Mexico that contributed to pitching the ideas in St. Louis, according to their team leaders.
Although the Air Force eventually rewarded their efforts, both leaders said their paths to innovation were strung with red tape and resistance.
“It was not a smooth ride through this whole three years,” Staff Sgt. Ryan Amador of Project Weapon said by phone April 25. “We really had our struggles and sometimes it would die off for a couple of months, and then we would end up talking to the next person in line to see if we can get to a yes.”
The projects simplify the work of loading and maintaining armaments and armament systems on two types of Air Force warplanes.
They were among 37 entries at Aether Sprint, the annual pitch session for Air Force innovators, according to an April 18 news release from Osan’s 51st Fighter Wing. The event gives airmen a chance to put their ideas in front of senior leaders in Air Force logistics.
Project Weapon provides a more efficient method for testing weapon systems on F-16 Fighting Falcons, Amador said. It started in late 2020 at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, where he serves as the 52nd Fighter Wing’s innovation cell officer.
The team created an adapter that simplifies and improves power transfer from a generator to the Store System Tester, equipment maintainers use to troubleshoot and diagnose problems in F-16 weapon systems.
Project Weapon replaces nine individual pieces of equipment with the single adapter, Amador said.
“Our team was so persistent in making sure that this innovation was pushed through to the Air Force that that’s why we are where we are at now,” he said.
Col. Jason Purdy, 52nd Maintenance Group commander, left, receives a Project Weapon demonstration from Airman 1st Class Joel Martinez at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, Jan. 23, 2024. (Sydney Franklin/U.S. Air Force)
Project CLAWS started in 2022 at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., with ordnance crews looking for a streamlined method of loading bombs onto the wings of AC-130 Hercules gunships, said Master Sgt. Kahlil Bashir.
The CLAWS team, led by Bashir, now a section chief with Osan’s 51st Munitions Squadron, brainstormed ways to reduce the equipment involved and simplify the process.
CLAWS, or Compact Loading Adapter Wench System, was first pitched during an innovation competition, or Spark Tank, at Cannon, Bashir told Stars and Stripes at Osan on April 25.
The Navy shared its experience using hoists for loading munitions, which led to prototypes and more competition, like Dragon’s Lair 8, an event hosted by U.S. Special Operations Command, and the 18th Airborne Corps in March 2023 in Tampa, Fla., Bashir said.
Like Amador, Bashir said the way forward for his team was not easy.
“There’s a lot of red tape we encounter in the military,” he said. “Every single one of those hurdles has the potential to just cut the whole project.”
