Community

Crew Chief Profiles

  SSgt. Justin Fluegel

Crew Chief Profiles main menu | Create your profile

My profile

 Name SSgt. Justin Fluegel
Country
Unit 78th Fighter Squadron "Bushmasters"
Crewing F-16s from 2001 until 2005
Contact justinfluegel Send me a private message
Website My personal myspace site
I started working on F-16's in Oct 2001. My first assignement was to Shaw AFB in the 78th Bushmasters, as the third wipe on F-16 "93-0532". My DCC was SSgt. Hewitt and the aircraft was the second cleanest, only compared to 378 the squadron bird. If there was metal in the cockpit it was "chromed" out. The plane was on the Demo team prior to my arrival with "Hewy" as the DCC then too. After my ADCC went to Korea about 2 months after I got there, I filled his spot. We "assumed" the title of the 55th after our unit was disbanded in 2003 and the 55th aircraft went to Cannon. The personnel was spread out among the 77th, 79th, and "new" 55th. I was on that plane until Jun 2003. That month I was assigned to Alert as a "Alert Status Crew Chief". That was the best 6 month assignement I've ever had. Upon my return in Jan 2004 to the 55th I was moved to ADCC on 98-0003.

In June 2004 I left active duty and returned to NY to work with the Syracuse ANG, 174th. I spent 9 months there as a Traditional guardsmen before moving to Las Vegas, where I currently am. I'm in the Nevada ANG working on the MQ-1B Predator UAV attached to an active duty unit, the 757th.

Current or Favourite assignment

The unit was my first, and now it's disbanded. When I was part of it, the maintainers were part of the Fighter Squadron (changed mid 2002). Now maintenance is it's own unit, spreading the gap between ops and maintainers. My current unit is not a F-16 unit.

Deployments

I never had the opportunity to go over seas with my active duty units. I went on some decent TDY's. With the 55th I went to Barksdale, La and Savannah, Ga. With the 174th I went to Fresno in Feb 2005 working for their Alert durring the base ORI inspection. We also went to Eglin AFB in March of that year.

After I joined the Detachment in Las Vegas, NV I have been deployed to Balad Ab, Iraq (Oct 05 - Feb 06) and Kandahar AF, Afghanistan (Feb 07 - Jun 07).

My Jets & Assignments

 Unit 78th Fighter Squadron "Bushmasters" [History]
Period 2001 - 2003
-served as the 9th AF East Coast Viper Demo bird -received a bird strike one time where the bird was a small sparrow type, and hit just above the wing tank pylon. When we found it on the BPO/PR all we saw were the tips of the wings and two little legs sticking out. -Was the last 78th FS bird to loose the "Viper" tail flash and recieve the 55th Checker board (I have picture the day we took her to paint barn and will post them when I return from afghan).
Unit 55th Fighter Squadron "Fightin' Fifty Fifth" [History]
Period 2003 - 2004
-nicknamed "Balls 3" -had Pacer Gen paint job -recieved a bird strike that left a blood splat on the intake at the 0730 position. The stain never fully went away, no matter what I used to clean it.
Unit 174th Fighter Squadron "The Bats" [History]
Period 2004 - 2005
Unit 757 AMXS / 57 FW (152AW / Det. 1 / NVANG) Creech AFB, NV
Period 2005 -
-The only Air force predator unit. -If there is a predator there, the 757th is there. -If you think a predator can fly there, it has. -Built by General Atomics from off the shelf parts, and local general aviation parts. -has a ROTAX 914i 101HP recip. motor. -Only air force aircraft to have flown 3000 hours in a single month Reached from Balad AB in June 2006.
Visitor Comments






Note: Errors and omissions in the above text can be added here. Please note: your comments will be displayed immediately on this page.

If you wish to send a private comment to the webmasters, please use the Contact Us link.