FAIRBORN — The massive fuselage that made its way slowly through Greene County early this week was headed to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to serve an important purpose. Contractors Ball and Son delivered the section of Boeing 767 from Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, Ohio, to the 711th Human Performance Wing’s U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) around 2 p.m. on March 3.
After its three-day journey through Greene and Montgomery counties, this fuselage will join the cadre of seven other fuselages, all used for aeromedical evacuation training at USAFSAM, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to the 88th Air Base Wing.
“Once our newest fuselage arrives, our partners in the 502nd Training Development Squadron at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, will retrofit it to mimic a KC-46 inside and out,” said Elizabeth Miller, USAFSAM’s deputy chair of En Route Care and project manager. “The KC-46 is the newest aircraft that will be used for aeromedical evacuation, so we are adding this airframe to the others so our medical personnel can be trained and ready.”
The retrofitted fuselage will be another tool for training medical professionals to deliver care to injured warfighters—in the air. These courses include Flight Nurse training, Aeromedical Evacuation Technician training, and the Critical Care Air Transport Teams training, among others.
Like many projects across the Air Force Research Laboratory, the acquisition of this training device is sponsored and funded by Air Mobility Command—a strong 711HPW partner for its aeromedical evacuation and readiness missions.