FACSFACJax: Evolving mission, responding Sailors

But being on the edge of a naval base and operating from its practically hidden location in Building 118 does nothing to lessen its awesome responsibility.

The facility, on Albermarle Street, has 125 alert Sailors and civilians responsible for 80,000 square miles of land, sea and air. Nothing moving through the air or steaming over the sea is overlooked from Wilmington, N.C., to Daytona Beach.

The facility's primary mission is sea and air traffic control. The command allows military aircraft to train in local airspace, permits ships to complete work-ups and war games at sea, and protects northern right whales.

Several departments comprise FACSFAC. Each contributes a different part to the overall mission. Air traffic controllers staff Sealord, who provide air traffic control services for fleet and local squadrons from area bases. A close relationship is maintained with the Federal Aviation Administration, because the airspace FACSFAC controls is sometimes needed for commercial planes during foul weather. Military aircraft on training missions are given clearances to use protected airspace, and then to leave once the training is accomplished.

FACSFAC Career Counselor ET1(SW) Robert Hernandez scans the Job Advertising and Selection System for his Sailors. "I'm happy to help our people shape their careers while fulfilling the needs of the Navy at the same time," he remarked.

Knowing when and where planes and ships will be and notifying Sealord and Bristol Departments is the job of the Schedules Department. Pilots need to know where they can use local bombing ranges for training, such as the Pinecastle area in Ocala State Forest, where land is shared with civilians. Ships need to know what areas others aren't already using, particularly during live-fire exercises. Sealord and Bristol receive reports of where and when ships or planes are operating and kept current with changes the department makes.

The electronics technicians and fire controlmen of Maintenance Department provide critical support for nearly every other department. ''The radios and computers Sealord and Bristol use and the telephones everyone uses all have to be maintained,'' ex-plained the de-partment's assistant leading pet-ty officer, FC1 (SW) Rodney Ro-gers. ''Our technicians maintain a great deal of equipment in-house. Periodically, more advanced equipment replaces the old technology, such as the Air Defense System Integrator (ADSI),'' he added. For FACSFAC, ADSI makes possible a bird's-eye view of operations not only in the local operating areas, but of the world.

Communications and radar equipment is also remotely controlled and maintained at several locations on and off base. The facility's high-frequency radio transceivers, through a network of coaxial cables, feed radio-frequency energy to a nearby antenna farm. Each antenna can radiate a kilowatt of power, each radio wave carrying voice and data signals to the fleet.

Day and night, a constant stream of messages from other commands flows through coaxial cables and monitors for OS2(SW) Andrea Jones to log.

Maintenance Department, with the help of other departments, has spent recent months stripping, scraping and painting rooms that will soon be used for FACSFAC's recent expanded mission involving homeland security. Truckloads of items were removed to make way for a forthcoming new era of operations.

Operations specialists standing watch in Bristol Department communicate with surface ships moving in and out of restricted areas. Granting permission for ship movements and live exercises, the department, with the help of Schedules Department, helps battle groups avoid conflicts. One particularly vulnerable part of the ocean Bristol protects is its living inhabitants, namely the Northern Right Whales. Thirty organizations, from Florida to Boston, Mass., receive whale sighting reports from FACSFAC. ''The facility relays critical data to shore facilities and ships, including locations and the number of adults and calves,'' explained OS1(SW) Brian Phipps, Bristol's leading petty officer.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, collisions with ships rank as the number one cause of death to Northern Right Whales. At last count, only 300 Northern Right Whales were known to be alive in the Atlantic Ocean. Research at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass., revealed that saving two mature female Northern Right Whales per year from untimely deaths could reverse the decline of the population. Consequently, the facility takes its duty to protect whales seriously, and has done so since 1993.

FACSFAC also takes its own evolution seriously. The facility will soon take on new responsibilities.

Inside Sealord, AC2(SW/AW) Adrian Adkins closely monitors an air target before initiating contact with the pilot.

''The basic FACSFAC mission hasn't changed from scheduling and monitoring the airspace and surface traffic off the coast from Charleston, S.C., to Cape Canaveral,'' explained FACSFAC Executive Officer Cmdr. Curtis Stubbs.

''What is new is our Navy/Coast Guard partnership that extends inward from our warning areas all the way into our inland waterways to include the St. Johns River and our naval and commercial port facilities. This is just the beginning of a multi-agency to support homeland security,'' Stubbs concluded.