Maintainers keep old fleet in air, contributing to life saving mission

by Staff Sgt. Stephenie Wade
455th Air Expeditionary Wing

9/11/2013 - BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- Every day, thousands of service members and coalition partners operating in Afghanistan rely on the C-130 Hercules and to keep this old workhorse in the air, it requires a team of maintainers.

Maintainers with the C-130 Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit at Bagram Air Field are charged with daily maintenance and repair of the fleet here. The maintainers work long hours, days and nights, to ensure the aircraft are ready to transport people and supplies throughout Afghanistan.

According to the maintainers, the C-130 is a dependable machine; however, given that the current models stationed at Bagram were built during the 70's, they require regular upkeep. Every C-130 must be brought into a maintenance hangar after 270 flight hours for a more thorough inspection called a home station check. The HSC inspection occurs on each aircraft about every eight months.

"C-130's are usually deployed here for a year while crews rotate in and out; in that time, if it comes due for a HSC we perform the maintenance," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Visconti, 455 EAMXS aerospace repair and reclamation craftsman deployed from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. "My job here entails performing inspection on all aircraft flight controls, as well as landing gear cargo ramp and doors. During this HSC I replaced the nose landing gear, drag braces, elevator counterbalances and crew entrance door lower torque tube."

According to Senior Airman Jacob Reinaman, 455th EAMX aerospace journeyman also deployed from Little Rock AFB, the HSC is a more in-depth inspection where the maintainers are trying to catch things before they become problems.

"Back home I am a crew chief and here, during an HSC, it's my job to inspect the whole aircraft for cracks and damage," said Reinaman. "If I find something that needs repaired, I annotate it; and if it's a part I cannot fix, for example an engine, I call a specialist who is an expert in fixing engines."

The HSC also calls for inspections of other systems on the aircraft, such as the flight deck instrument panel gauges, to ensure they're accurately measuring the aircraft's fuel levels, engine temperature and torque, as well as a host of other measurements.

"Nobody remembers that our job is to fix the aircraft all day every day, but once something breaks really bad, or in an inflight emergency occurs, everyone knows about it and they know we are working to get it back in the air," said Visconti, a native of Brooklyn.

It all amounts to an incredible sight of numerous EAMXS specialists simultaneously moving in and out of the aircraft day and night with each member working on different parts and pieces of their individual systems in order to optimize the performance of the aircraft as a whole.

"When its broke, we fix it and I take pride in that because it's our aircraft," said Reinaman, a native of Johnson Creek, Wis. "But the best part of our job here is after we fix aircraft. We get to watch the C-130s take off and land knowing that we contributed to the medical evacuation mission, which help save people's lives."

C-130 are used to transport members back home, into theater, carry and off-load cargo to ground forces in need and transfer patients from one base to another with a hospital among other important missions, but without maintainers none of this would be possible.