Rancho graduate returns to LV to command key Nellis unit

Dick Benoit

Thursday, Aug. 4, 2005 | 8:16 a.m.

The son of a retired Air Force helicopter air crewman has returned to his hometown to command one of the key units at Nellis Air Force Base.

Col. Mike McKinney, Rancho High School class of 1978 and the son of Jim and Cindy McKinney of Las Vegas, assumed command of the 57th Operations Group at the base in June. This is the fourth assignment at Nellis and third move back to his hometown of Las Vegas for the 23-year Air Force veteran.

The former F-117A Stealth Fighter pilot's first assignment to Nellis came in 1989 when he flew the then-top secret aircraft out of the base's Tonopah Test Range facility. That assignment led to his promotion into a 1992 assignment as the F-117 Project Manager at Nellis.

Since then the 1982 UNLV graduate and proud Alpha Tao Omega brother has traveled to assignments in Osan, Korea, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and Kunsan, Korea with another stint at Nellis as training squadron commander in 2001.

During his career McKinney has served as an F-4 pilot, F-117 instructor pilot, and an F-16 pilot and instructor pilot, and in a variety of administrative and leadership positions including flight commander, standardization and evaluation officer and operations officer.

During his assignment at Air Combat Command headquarters at Langley he specialized in information warfare and special technical operations.

He commanded the renowned Red Flag exercise training unit at Nellis and prior to that he was the deputy commander of the 8th Operations Group at Kunsan Air Base, Korea.

Now, as the 57th Operations Group commander, McKinney will oversee three squadrons at Nellis and Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs and direct the operations of the RQ/MQ-1 Predator reconnaissance units at Creech. In a recent profile of the new commander in the Nellis base newspaper, The Bullseye, McKinney noted that one of his chief concerns as commander will be to make sure the Predator aircraft, which have both observation and attack capabilities, are employed by the Air Force appropriately.

"There are times when the reconnaissance capability is required and times when its precision attack capabilities is required. ... Our goal is to make sure we can provide both whenever the combatant commanders call upon us," he said.

McKinney, a command pilot with over 3,100 flying hours in the F-4, F-117A, AT-38 and F-16, soloed and earned his private pilot's license at North Las Vegas airport when he was 17 years old. When he went off to Officer Training School after graduation from UNLV he really didn't plan on serving in several hometown assignments during his 23-year career.

"Partly it's been a pure stroke of luck that I've been able to serve the Air Force so close to my parents, my hometown and alma mater," he said.

McKinney is married to the former Michelle Bell, Chaparral High School class of 1982 and the daughter Rex Bell and Pat Baldwin, both of Las Vegas, Nevada. He and Michelle have two daughters, Madeline and Nicole.

In brief