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 1. Observation; Items of new medical equipment .'
 were introduced to the aeromedical evacuation
 medical crews after arrival at Ramstein AB.

 2. Discussion: - Provisions must be made to provide
 adequate training when new medical equipment is
 introduced during wartime deployments. Several
 pieces of medical equipment were used on
 strategic aeromedical evacuation missions which
 were unfamiliar to medical crewmembers.
 Training over 100 medical crews would have been
 impossible if the number of anticipated patients
 had materialized. A method to provide
 standardized training on equipment to be used
 after activation to medical crewmembers needs to
 be in place.

 3. Recommendation: New equipment should not be
 entered in the aeromedical evacuation system
 during contingencies unless it is far superior
 to equipment already in use. Also, medical
 equipment either should be purchased for all
 aeromedical evacuation units so training can be
 accomplished at the unit level or the equipment
 should be centralized at a large aeromedical
 evacuation squadron or group where individual
 crewmembers can be trained as required. If
 aeromedical equipment is consolidated at a
 centralized location(s) it can be easily
 maintained and could be made available during
 contingency operations.

 X. Medical crews flying strategic missions should be
 staged at CONUS bases when possible.

 1. Observation: Large numbers of medical
 crewmembers were staged at European bases
 overtaxing base support capability.

 2. Discussion: Medical crews, far in excess of
 actual needs to crew CONUS bound missions, were
 based in Europe. In addition to the great
 amount of funds expended to deploy over 140
 medical crews to the Ramstein AB area, many
 medical crews were not used due to the lack of
 patients. When a medical crew flys a CONUS
 mission, normal recovery time to Ramstein is
 three to four days. The need for aeromedical
 crews to fly C-141 missions is similar to the
 need for pilots to fly C-141 missions. A CONUS
 mission from Europe usually will take up the
 crew duty day allotted to crewmembers. When this
 occurs, the normal approach is to stage pilots
 on a rotational basis at key bases from which
 missions either transit or originate. This
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