Tenth Generation

237. Jerome Lewis (Romey) FLEMING (DEJACO) was born on 31 Jan 1949 in West Palm Beach, Florida. He retired in 1995 as a Major in United States Air Force. He served in the military since 1979 in United States Air Force. Jerry Fleming was Honored for Lifetime Achievement in Mission Planning. At the 2008 Mission Planning Users' Conference, TYBRIN's own Jerry Fleming fittingly accepted the very first Mission Planning Lifetime Achievement Award. According to Colonel Paul Hastert, “the award is presented to individuals whose meritorious contributions to mission planning over many years make a clear difference in the way mission planning is conducted. Lifetime Achievement recognizes sustained effort that fundamentally altered the tools used to conduct mission planning.” Colonel J.D. Partain presented the inaugural award to Jerry in front of friends and colleagues gathered in the Eldorado Ballroom of the Flamingo Hotel Las Vegas. As Colonel Partain chronicled Jerry's achievements a number of software firsts were among them.

The first weapons planner (forerunner of Combat Weapons Delivery Software), first A-10 mission planner, and the first Flight Performance Models (FPMs) are among his credits. He wrote the first curve-fitting tool used to automate the transformation of hard-copy pages of aircraft performance data into digital FPMs. FPMs are components critical in predicting fuel burn and climb and descent performance as well as take-off and landing computations in today's mission planning applications.

Colonel Partain also addressed Jerry's longevity acknowledging his Vietnam veteran status and F-4 Phantom experience before sharing the story behind Jerry's 30-plus years of computerized mission planning experience. In 1977 Jerry left the Phantom for the A-10 Thunderbolt (affectionately know as the Wart Hog). While learning to fly the “Hog” at the A-10 Replacement Training Unit he met fellow Mississippi State alumni, Jake Thorn. Other than MSU and A-10s, Jerry a physics major, and Jake an electrical engineer, had another common interest as HAM radio operators and so their friendship began. While they were together at Myrtle Beach AFB, Jerry managed another first; he became part of the first operational A-10 Wing.

In 1979, while attending the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis AFB, he began “coding” using one of the first programmable calculators, a Texas Instruments TI-59. The school however, was using the Hewlett Packard HP-97 so Jerry moved the program from the TI-59 onto the HP. The school curriculum required each student to write a paper so Jerry wrote his on Automated Weapons Planning.

Jerry's return from Weapons School instantly doubled his neighborhood's computing power as he and Jake learned about their new “toys.” During an Operational Readiness Inspection the weapons software they were using caught the attention of the inspectors. The inspectors were so impressed that Jerry and Jake were “invited” to brief the Tactical Air Command General staff.

The “Jake & Jerry Show” dutifully reported to the staff. According to Thorn, “From day one Jerry has been technical and I could sell ice water to Eskimo's, so I briefed the program.” While the focus of the briefing was the weapons planning software, General Creech wanted to know if it could be expanded to include flight planning. Jake told him it could and they were given four weeks to come up with a product. Being smart aviators and under considerable pressure, Jerry and Jake enlisted the help of their wives and the team went to work.

Jerry coded the input screens, calculation module, and FPMs. Jake wrote the printing function. Betsy Thorn (a computer science major) wrote the database for NAVAIDs and Mercedes Fleming entered the NAVAID and airport data from the IFR Supplement book. In essence, these two ladies created the forerunner of what mission planners now know as the Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File (DAFIF) database!

In February of 1981 the prototype mission planner was demonstrated. Keep in mind computers were still an oddity to most aviators at the time so gaining acceptance was a major challenge. The “that's the way we've always done it” mentality, coupled with the “what do you do when the power goes out” naysayers formed the majority of resistance. Some of these dinosaurs still roam the halls of headquarters today. A smaller portion of the crew force was just unsure of computer technology in general because it was so new.

By 1982 Jerry was working in the Tactical Air Warfare Center (TAWC) at Eglin AFB and began working on FPlan. Lotus 123 and WordStar were the commercial software models that steered the FPlan design. Over the next few years crewmembers of all kinds of aircraft were being won over by the speed and accuracy of planning with FPlan. Colonel Partain recalled getting the quarterly updates to FPlan on 3.5 inch floppies arriving in plain brown mailers.

By the mid-eighties software was being written for almost every facet of mission planning. Most of it was written by the very aviators responsible for carrying out those missions. Innovation was the product of necessity and knowing what was needed made the aviator key to making good software. Most of the software in use today can be traced back to this “user developed” heritage.

Even though most of his mission planning experience was with PC based systems, Jerry also worked on the UNIX based project Mission Support System (MSS) versions 1 & 2. The MSS happened to make use of digitizer boards. Always an innovator (and quite to the chagrin of some) he even found a way to connect a digitizer board to FPlan.

Jerry retired from active duty military after Desert Storm but he remained closely connected to the mission planning community. In 1991 he joined TYBRIN Corporation. In his tenure as Test Branch Lead his expertise was essential during each major transformation in mission planning applications. Always keeping the user's needs foremost, he evaluated new capabilities against the old and ensured there was a real, not just a perceived improvement. He guided FPLAN to Combat Flight Planning Software (CFPS) and then saw CFPS combine with FalconView mapping software to become Portable Flight Planning Software (PFPS).

Jerry started the first PFPS training classes at Eglin. Each of his test team members rotated teaching responsibilities to ensure we maintained proficiency. These were sought after slots by aviators as there was no other place they could get this training. Soon requests to visit bases to provide training around the world were coming in and Jerry made sure we supported those.

In 1999, the Joint Mission Planning Software (JMPS) program was announced. Not too long after that Jerry and his team began testing JMPS. Some of the fiercest debates I witnessed came in the very early days of testing JMPS when it seemed we couldn't get anything to work right. He always insisted on quality for the user. Jerry is now part of the TYBRIN Mission Planning Training Team. He is a JMPS fielding instructor and trains aviators on their newest generation of software applications as they are receiving it - yet another first! No doubt all those in the mission planning community who have benefitted so greatly from Jerry Fleming's lifetime contributions would add their sincere thanks for a job well done.

Jerome Lewis (Romey) FLEMING (DEJACO) and Mercedes (Cedie) WYPSAK were married on 11 Apr 1969 in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi.

Mercedes (Cedie) WYPSAK was born on 29 Dec 1949.

Jerome Lewis (Romey) FLEMING (DEJACO) and Mercedes (Cedie) WYPSAK had the following children:

381

i.

Bridgette FLEMING is a symphony librarian in New Orleans, Louisiana.