Split-Site Deployment
Without Splitting Safety By Lt. Nick Morris, VP-10 It is becoming increasingly common for P-8A squadrons to conduct “split-site” deployments, where the main body of the squadron is thousands of miles away from another large detachment site. Some expeditionary communities are intimately familiar with operating using this distributed deployment model, but the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance (MPRA) community still has much to learn.
and El Salvador all at the same time. Think about everything that makes a squadron tick. The operations department is staffed to promulgate the squadron’s flight schedule. Now split the staff in two, three or four to write multiple schedules for each theater. Consider the maintenance department, with manning designed to support a squadron deployed to one location. Now split them among six concurrent detachment sites.
VP-10 recently conducted a deployment with five aircraft based in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) and two aircraft based in the 4th Fleet AOR.
Sometimes, there are enough bodies for multiple shifts and sometimes there is a single person qualified to do a certain job for an entire theater. Next, consider the training department, tasked to maintain readiness and manage upgrading throughput.
It was not uncommon for one or both main sites to support multiple additional detachments: at one point, the squadron’s seven aircraft and 12 crews were divided between Japan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Australia, Guam, U.S. minor outlying islands
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Using the split-site model, a quarter of the squadron’s aircrew may go several months without conducting the aircraft’s primary mission because they are supporting alternate
theater objectives. The Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization (NATOPS) department manages jackets, administers quarterly tests and promotes standardization. What happens if the NATOPS officer is 6,000 miles and a 15-hour time difference away from the office? Everything that makes the squadron great is divided up into smaller segments and hampered by manning shortages, time zone differences and communication challenges. Aviation safety officers (ASOs) reading this might think about all the safety requirements on their plate. Monthly Enlisted Safety Committee and Aviation Safety Council meetings, quarterly Human Factors Councils and Safety Investigation Board (SIB) training, periodic safety stand-downs – all these are conducted several times during a typical MPRA deployment.
