DA DD Forms Answers

DD Form 1748 — JOINT AIRDROP ONSPECTION RECORD (PLATFORMS)

Joint Airdrop Inspection Record (Platforms)

Which document is this? DD Form 1748, official title JOINT AIRDROP ONSPECTION RECORD (PLATFORMS). What does it do? It exists to Joint Airdrop Inspection Record (Platforms). Everything on this page builds on those two facts.

Will you need a different form because of where you serve? No. DD forms are Department-wide instruments, and that scope is what separates them from service publications. One edition, all branches, defense agencies included.

Where does the requirement come from? From not stated, with not stated responsible for the document itself. Those are the names to cite if anyone asks under what authority you filed.

Which edition should you have? not stated, listed as not stated. A copy dated otherwise is a copy worth replacing.

What the form asks for

  • AAFTER
  • BEFORE
  • CheckBox1
  • Checkonly
  • Column1
  • Column2
  • CurrentPage
  • DateField1
  • Draft
  • Footer
  • FormNumber_Date
  • Frame
  • INSPECTIONBEFOREAFTER
  • Inspection
  • Instructions
  • InstructionsHeading
  • Instructions_Title
  • Leftside
  • Needs_DD67
  • Page1
  • Page2
  • PageCount
  • Pages
  • PrintButton

Download the form

What can you download? The available set is PDF. How big is the job? The form runs 1 pages with roughly 106 fields to complete.

Fillable or printable — which do you have? Click inside a box. If it accepts a cursor and typed text, the file is fillable and your entries save with it. If nothing happens, the pdf is flat, and the only way forward is printing it and writing on paper.

Should you type or write? Type, whenever the choice is yours. The reason is what happens after submission: the record gets copied and scanned, and every pass costs handwriting legibility that typed entries never lose.

Why will not the xfdl file open? Because it is not a pdf. Xfdl belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, long the Department's electronic form format, and it needs IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or an equivalent reader installed first.

Is there a charge? No — free, all formats. Where should you open the file? In a full pdf application on your own machine. Browser-embedded viewers handle field properties unpredictably.

Where do you start? At the top. Identification first, the substance of the entry second, certification last. Why that order? Because fields lower on the page often depend on data you established in the header, and filling out of sequence produces contradictions.

What is the first thing to check? The edition date on the face of the form. Does it read not stated? If not, the copy is superseded, and a superseded DD form is a real problem: Department-level revisions replace the blank for every service at once, so an old file on a shared drive is stale everywhere, not just in your office.

Which fields are required? Treat all of them as required, marking N/A where an item genuinely does not apply. What trips people on dates? Writing them in a familiar format instead of the one the form specifies.

Why read the Privacy Act Statement? Because it sits ahead of the personal data fields deliberately. It names the collection authority, the principal purpose, the routine uses of your data and the consequence of declining. Reading it afterward tells you nothing you can still act on.

What counts as a signature? Ink on a printed copy, or a credentialed digital signature — CAC-based, applied in software that supports it. What does not count? Your name typed into the signature box. That is a name. Then date the block, because an undated certification is a returned form.

What sends forms back most often? An obsolete edition, blank required boxes, handwriting illegible after scanning, dates in a format the form did not ask for, and certification without a signature or without a date.

Is the form its own instruction manual? Partly. The rest sits in not stated, which is also the authority where the two texts conflict.

What happens after you finish? It routes to the office specified in not stated or in local guidance. And your own record? Save a duplicate first; nobody regrets having one.

What if DD Form 1748 points to another form? Search the series and number. Because the DD sequence is common to every military department, no branch qualifier is needed to land on the right file.

Why do some instructions cite both a DA and a DD form? Because the procedure touches both systems, not because the forms are related. Service forms answer to a service proponent; DD forms answer to not stated or another Department office. The sequences were never aligned.

Why do editions change at all? Three reasons, mostly: the prescribing directive gets reissued, the information collected changes, or the required notice language is amended. Are you notified when it happens? No. Which is why confirming not stated at the moment you download is worth the few seconds.

Will your completed form be accepted? That is not a question this page can answer. What you have here is a published Department of Defense document, a description of it and instructions for filling it out. Nothing on the page is legal advice, and nothing here determines what any office does with a submission. Where do the remaining questions go? To not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named in not stated.

Questions and answers

What is DD Form 1748?
JOINT AIRDROP ONSPECTION RECORD (PLATFORMS)
Which edition is current?
Not stated by the publisher
Who is responsible for this form?
Not stated
In which formats can it be downloaded?
PDF

Other forms in the series