The 104th Fighter Wing is starting the new year with a new mission. Beginning next week, the jets could be called to deploy anywhere, even overseas.

F-15 Pilot Lt. Col. Morgan Davis says, "We are ready to be called into action at anytime."

On February 15th the 104th Fighter Wing will accept its new Air Sovereignty Alert Mission, allowing for rapid response to any airborne threat in the Northeast and beyond, a critical part of homeland defense.

The Wing has been in conversion status since November 2005 when the Base Realignment and Closure Committee decided to replace Barnes A-10 jets with longer-range F-15's, formerly assigned to 102nd fighter wing on Cape Cod.

Alert Chief Enlisted Manager Senior Master Sgt. Rob Roy says, "We've been getting ready for at least that long and now we've reached the culmination where we are ready to pick up that alert mission for the North East air defense sector."

Which means the pilots and jet maintainers in Westfield will be on 24/7 standby, ready to respond to any threats.

Lt. Col. Davis says, "We will have pilots and maintainers over in what we call the alert crew facility. We have an alert operations area over there and they will just be on standby doing normal day to day things. But if the notification comes they will basically do what we call scramble, run to the jets and try to launch in minimal times."

The pilots and maintainers must work as a team. The most important thing is making sure every Eagle is ready to roll when pilots get the call. For maintainers that means the care and feeding of a 40 million dollar aircraft.

Senior Master Sgt. Roy says, "It's very scripted. Each person has a distinct responsibility for making sure the aircraft gets off safely and they practice it so it comes to them naturally. It's basically very similar to a firefighter. They know how to respond and do it the same way all the time."

The 5 year conversion has brought many changes to Barnes.
The Air Force invested $45 million dollars in new construction and modernization.

Lt. Col. Davis says, "It's been intense for everyone on the base from civil engineering to the pilots and maintenance. The pilots have been training to fly these missions. Maintenance has been training to try and get the jet's ready, prepared and launch the jets out as well as recover the jets and CE, civil engineers have been working on facilities and structure that we need for the new mission."

The public rarely sees the changes inside the base, but the sight and sound of F-15's over Western Mass is hard to miss.