Speed, accuracy of utmost importance to aerial porters Published Aug. 3, 2006 By Lt. Col. Richard Curry 507th ARW Public Affairs Tinker AFB, Okla. -- Twenty-two members of the 72nd Aerial Port Squadron received familiarization training at Dobbins ARB last month during a "fly-in" deployment. The deployments are supported by the 465th Air Refueling Squadron as a management tool to take the aerial porters to training opportunities. "While we try to provide training opportunities for our people here at Tinker, they simply can't get the wide range of opportunities here as they can when we deploy to locations like Dobbins," said Senior Master Sgt. Nathaniel McGuire, 72 APS Senior ART. In fact Dobbins ARB is ideally suited for training as it's home to the Air Force Reserve Command's Transportation Proficiency Center. For more than 20 years the TPC has been the place where Reserve aerial porters learn the ins and outs of forklift operations, loaders, highline docks and pallet trains. Each year, approximately 1,000 aerial porters come to the TPC for in-residence training. The center's instructors use cutting-edge technology to provide distance learning training to thousands more. According to Master Sgt. James Zubor, TPC instructor, "A lot of people think this is just a 'box stacking' career field, but there's a lot more to it than that. Our challenge is to know how to palletize equipment in the least possible steps so it can be expedited to where it's needed in the least possible time," he said. At the same time, Zubor continued, the computer tracking systems aerial porters operate provide defense planners and combatant commanders with continuous awareness of where specific equipment or supplies are at any given time. For many of the 507th personnel attending the training this was their first experience at the TPC's state-of-the-art training facility. Many of the team are cross-training from other career fields. "For aerial porters, accuracy is the key to supporting mission success," Sergeant Zubor told the group. "What you do and how quickly and accurate you do it can have a direct impact on deployed forces and their ability to fight." In addition to receiving hands on training on the GATES computerized software program which tracks both equipment and people in transit, the members were shown details of the Halverson loader and palletized a load of equipment. Unique to this training center is the fact they possess several salvaged airframe fuselages to provide highly realistic load training. "Pallet build-up, cargo tracking, staging, and shipping are a thinking person's process," Sergeant Zubor said. "You constantly have to be thinking several steps ahead in order to solve the puzzle, move the cargo, as quickly as possible."