20th AGS / 520th AGS - RAF Upper Heyford, England

The 1980's

"The maintenance community of the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing experienced another major alteration on 31 October 1981. Headquarters USAFE redesignated the 20th Avionics Maintenance Squadron as the 20th Component Repair Squadron; renamed the 20th Organizational Maintenance Squadron as the 20th Aircraft Generation Squadron, and redubbed the 20th Field Maintenance Squadron as the 20th Equipment Maintenance Squadron. At the same time, it activated the 520th Aircraft Generation Squadron and inactivated the 20th Munitions Maintenance Squadron". Source: "History of the 20th Fighter Wing and RAF Upper Heyford."
From page 6 of the "Welcome To Britain '82 - '83" information packet. Submitted by John Double, 20th CRS/Automatic Test Stations, Jul 1983 - Sep 1990.
20th AGS Barracks & 20th AGS Sign. Submitted by Curtis Levin, 20th Aircraft Generation Squadron, Jan 1982 - Jan 1985.

The 2000's

Building 446, Dorm for the AGS & then the EMS.
Photos taken January, 2000.
Submitted by Kurt Rice, 520 AGS, 1982 - 1984, and 520 AGS / 79 AMU, 1986 - 1990.

Building 446 Dorm Dayroom, for the AGS & then the EMS.
Photo taken January, 2000.
Submitted by Kurt Rice, 520 AGS, 1982 - 1984, and 520 AGS / 79 AMU, 1986 - 1990.

Building 446, Dorm for the AGS & then the EMS.

Submitted by Marty Bindloss & I. Halford on 08/09/01.

Then and Now

A1C Kurt Rice, RAF Upper Heyford 3-Bay Weapons Loading Break Room, 1983. SMSgt. Kurt Rice, Aviano AB, Hanger 1, SNCO Induction Ceremony, 2002.

Notes & Quotes

"Great website. I noticed, however that you don't have anything on the two most important outfits in the whole 20th TFW - the Aircraft Generation Squadrons. When I arrived at Heyford in September '83 I was assigned as OIC of the 55th AMB - then one of the units in the 20th AGS along with the 77th AMB and the 20th Specialist Branch. The 520th AGS (them southern folk) was comprised of the 79th AMB and the fledgling 42nd AMB and the 520th Specialist Branch. At the time, the 42nd hadn't received its full complement of fat tails yet and was maintaining some of the extra aircraft from the 79th. The 79th AMB was the largest in the wing then with something like 32 aircraft vice the 24 each assigned to the 55th and 77th. Anyway, the 55th and 77th were both north of the runway (North Side) and the 79th and 42nd were south (South Side). Most folks simply referred to the AGSs that way - North Side and South Side. Additional HASs were being built North Side to accommodate the incoming EFs and as the 42nd got spooled up with the Ravens the decision was made up in the stratosphere of Wing leadership that the time had come to realign the AMBs. I transferred over to the 77th AMB in July of 84 when the 55th AMB came under the 520th AGS and the 42nd AMB was reassigned to the 20th AGS.
IIRC the two units made the physical swap in location around Oct/Nov of '84. The 42nd took over the shelters from the Victor Alert area up around the bend to HAS 24(?) and the 77th had the remainder of the North Side. The 55th moved into the shelters down near the CRS Avionics building and the 79th stayed put. At about the same time, the decision was also made to reassign all of the 67 model Es to the 77th AMB - things got real cozy for us up there in our corner of the world. Since we were now proper AMUs (the Specialist Branch that had been a separate unit under each AGS was split to provide each AMU with its own "scientists") the aircraft assignments were laid out as follows: all tail numbers ending in 0-3 went to the 79th, 4-6 to the 55th, and 7-9 (except for 079) went to the 77th along with the 67 models (67-119 through 67-123). This way, not only did each AMU have the tail number that corresponded to its TFS (055 to the 55th, 077 to the 77th, and 079 to the 79th), but it made it pretty easy for anyone outside of the AMU (the MOC folks that never got to see daylight) to know which unit an aircraft belonged to just by its tail number. Remember, the aircraft belonged to us Mx troops, we just let the pilots borrow them once in awhile (haha!).
As one last bit of change for us, Col. Barry (DCM) decided that each AMU also needed a unique identifier. The 42nd became Raven AMU (Grey), 55th became Cobra AMU (Blue), 79th became Tiger AMU (Yellow), the 77th became Fox AMU (Red). That Fox bit didn't sit too well with us and we managed to convince the Colonel that Dragon was better. So the 77th became the Red Dragon AMU. As far as we were concerned, we owned the North Side. I was lucky enough to have the sharpest bunch of NCOs and Airmen on the planet in the 77th. Guys like CMS Kendall (an honest-to-God Chief Master Sergeant!), SMS "Jack" Jackson, SMS "Spark Plug" Bosch, MSG "Uncle Al" Plouffe, MSG "Action Man" Matthews - the list goes on. These guys managed to keep me from losing the best job I ever had (haha!). The AMU of the Month flag belonged to us - we let one of the other AMUs borrow it for a month a couple of times a year just to keep their morale up - but it spent most of its time flying from our flagpole (IIRC 17 times in the 21 months that I was assigned to the 77th). We were actually closer to the village of Ardley than the rest of the base and took to referring to our location as RAF Ardley - my going away plaque is even inscribed so. It took less time to drive from Heyford to Bicester than to get across the runway and all the way around the bend to where we'd staked out our empire.
But, all good things must come to an end. Eventually the A-team broke up - DEROS, reassigned to another mx squadron, etc. The 77th AMU was never the same again. Sorry I can't send you any photos of those glory days - they were in one of the boxes that didn't make it back across the pond when I rotated stateside. Keep up the good work with the website."
Rob Swigert "Dragon"
Captain, OIC, 55 AMU, Sep 1983 - Jul 1984
OIC, 77 AMU, Aug 1984 - May 1986
OIC, Mx Ops, Jun 1986 - Sep 1986
"Duane,
Feel free to use whatever you'd like from my e-mail. I lost all of my photos from Heyford. Too bad. I had shots of the Nose Gear Door art on every aircraft in the 77th, some real nice ones of night launches, and a bunch from deployments to ZAB and Incirlik (and a great one of CMS Kendall in full NBC gear using one of his cigars to emphasize a point of "guidance" with one of the expediters). *sigh* Oh well, guess that's the way it goes. About the best that I could do for you are some scans of the few unit patches that I still have. Sorry."
Rob

Miscellaneous

20 AGS Top Three Plaque & F-111 Clock Pictures
Submitted by Alfred Plouffe, 20th OMS, 1975 - 1978 and 77 TFS Production Super, 1981 - 1985.

"I saw this 20th AGS plaque up for auction in summer 2004 at www.ebay.com."
Submitted by Duane Park.

"I saw this 520th AGS plaque up for auction in May 2002 at www.ebay.com."
Submitted by Duane Park.

This is not a complete representation of these squadrons, but more information will be added based on participation of squadron personnel.

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WebMaster: Duane Park
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This page was last updated on 6 January 2008.