I remember the "fighter squadron concept"; my first real
assignment was to the 43rd TFS (MacDill). It worked okay,
but required massive duplication of manpower (specialties)
in every squadron - and some of those skills were in very
short supply.

Worked fine for maintenance but not for ops as it meant a lot of lost range
times and crews sitting around waiting for planes to come OR so maint could
take credit for a flight. I was in a PACAF squadron, 391st TFS, Misawa later
34th, Kunsan when they went to the AFM 66-1 maint structure and the difference
in training effectiveness for crews was like night and day. I was also ops and
maint in the 48th TFW, and coold see the problems it caused for crews.

It did help maintenance in that it made scheduling easier and kept flying time
on birds pretty well balanced out.

Of course, it was tried only in TAC - while the combat
wings in PACAF and USAFE stayed with the older AMS/MMS/FMS/OMS
mold.

Not really it was used worldwide. I was in fighter wings in TAC, PACAF, and
USAFE under both concepts.



The earlier "Armament & Electronics" squadrons (along with
FMS for the mechanical trades) and OMS for crew cheifs was
pretty good, too.

Then the AF mandated a SAC type organizational structure with separate
squadrons for ops and the various maintenance types, Avionics (AMS),
Munitions (MMS), Field or backshop (FMS) and Organizational or
flightline OMS.

This was the norm; it was efficient of manpower, and
gave good training to the specialties.

Also madeif very difficult at times to work on planes like the F-4 because
suddenly everyone was carrying union guys.Each specialty could only touch their
part of the plane and lot of time was lost "waiting for specialists" when
formerly in the past, crew chiefs did many of the same tasks, so planes got
fixed quicker.




Apparently worked for big airplanes but well at all for fighters

Your dreaming. It worked oustandingly for fighters.

Not the F-4 from 69 - 79. I lived the problems. It made life far easier for
the specialist shops but aircraft availability suffered. Ask anyone who flew
jets under both concepts and see which they liked best.

The 388th at Korat in md 73 was a good example.
WE almost quit flying after the war ended because maintenance could hardly
generate airplanes going to a strict 66-1 concept.

Prior to that I hardly remember a sortie lost because maintenance couldn't get
a bird ready. A lot of it had to do with what was allowable for tail number
substitution. If your plane wasn't ready for its takeoff time you probably
wouldn't go even though there may be plenty of others ready but not on the
schedule that day.


Things improved a lot under COMO and POMO in TAC.

Let me correct that: you're ****in' delusional.

POMC (it's first name), COMO, and POMO (all the same thing)
were a disaster of major proportions for the fighter forces,
particularly when it came to maintenance training.
We had 7-level specialists in AGS who didn't have a clue
about how their systems worked. Not surprising: they never
got a chance to fix them. They spent most of their time
kicking chocks, hanging tanks, and manhandling refuels.
Under POMO, the only time a lot of jets were actually fixed
(instead of patched PMC) - was when they were handed over to
EMS or CRS for phase, radar cal, etc. Otherwise, "tires and
fires" were all that mattered.

- John T., F-4 WCS toad and memeber of the 1st, 4th, 15th,
36th, 50th, 56th, 86th, and 388th (Korat) TFWs...