'We've invested a lot of time getting our pilots trained," he said. 'Which, quite honestly has been a simple task because these are the same pilots who've maintained their combat readiness capability from Ramstein (AB, Germany) and the ones who flew in Deny Flight three months ago."

However, most of the squadron maintenance people are new and most of the squadron preparation has been in getting the weapons crews trained so they can load live munitions, according to West.

'We started almost from the ground up on our maintenance side with a new team," West said. 'We have some key people from Ramstein that knew this operation before, but it's a little different for them now doing this from home station."

The squadron still has 7,000 square feet of buildings, temporary facilities and a maintenance complex under construction.

The squadron has also been building pro grams, some of them from scratch, in less than austere conditions, according to West. 'When we signed up to do this operation, we did it with the picture that we'd be imbedded into our facilities -- currently we're not," he said.

"It's a real milestone for this squadron to be flying contingency operations," West said. 'With everything required to stand this squadron up slipping to the right, the commitment to do Deny Flight didn't slip a day, in fact, we're even a week earlier than we'd originally planned."

West attributes the squadron's success in part to the people behind the scenes. "The real story is those folks that bloody their knuckles in a dark hardened shelter having grease drip in their faces every day," he said. "They're the ones that make it happen. We've been very nomadic in the pursuit for facilities and it's been very disruptive. yet we've been able to pull it off."

The squadron has been able to "pull it off" easier with help from the 555th FS.

"We've learned a lot," West said. "There's been no hoarding of information. This is not a competition. Anything we learn we are passing to them also because the success of the wing is what we have at heart"

The 510th FS also has experienced pilots on their side. Out of the 20 pilots assigned to the squadron, only four or five have not flown Deny Flight missions before.

One of the biggest concerns West has is quality of life. "I'm not worried about the mission," he said. "The Air Force is made up of the kind of people that'll make the job happen. The cost however, is what I'm worried about because it's going to manifest itself in the families. The cost is home time ... time with the children and quality Lime with spouses. That's what really worries me and it's something I really need to pay attention to."

West has taken time to brief all squadron members and he's still getting the word out to spouses. "They deserve to know what this year's going to hold for them so they can plan," West said.

Another concern West has is the support he's getting for squadron personnel. Since Aviano is the only base flying contingency operations from home base it's different than if the squadron were deployed.

"When you deploy somewhere you deploy finance, medical care and all the support functions," West said. "When the squadron is deployed their whole life and focus is built around that contingency operation.

"The difficult thing here is the support agencies are manned and equipped to run a base during the normal duty hours and we're going to have two fighter squadrons here that are embedded in continuous contingency operations that take us way outside the support windows," he said.

"Those kinds of things that go way above and beyond what a normal base is used to doing are the things that will help make life here a little bit easier for my guys," he said. "I'm looking for that leadership and I'd be proud of any agency that can step up to the challenge."