5th OSS officer receives AF award Published May 30, 2006 By Senior Airman Danny Monahan Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. -- The Air Force recently recognized an Airman from the 5th Operations Support Squadron with the 2005 Air Force Modeling and Simulation Award. Lt. Col. Darren Wilson was the leader of a three-man team while stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Va., that built a capability analysis tool, which effectively solves difficult problems and worked for approval to add to the Air Force Standard Analysis Tool Kit, which allows other agencies to use the tool for their own studies and analysis. “An example of what CAT does would be a comparison of two aircraft,” said Colonel Wilson. “We expect the F-22A to be more capable than the F-15C, but we also expect to buy fewer numbers of the newer fighter. The decision makers want to know how many we need to replace the F-15C capability. CAT also accounts [for many other] factors and lets us look at how cutting, buying, or upgrading a particular aircraft in a particular year affects the total capability of the force over the next 20 or 30 years, taking into account how much we expect our potential adversaries to improve. ” Colonel Wilson had to relinquish his command as the team before his work was done at Langley AFB prior to his permanent change of station to Minot Air Force Base, but was still recognized for his hard work. “It was surprising at first,” said Colonel Wilson. “I moved to Minot last March and did not know we had been nominated until I received word that we had won. It feels good, though, especially since it represents a lot of hard work and effort by our team.” According to Colonel Wilson, although he accepted this award with his other two team members, Jeff Grechanik and Jack Jordan, many more deserve appreciation. “This was really a collaborative effort involving dozens of experts in many fields on the Air Combat Command staff who provided us with an amazing amount of help.”