Metal fabricators are wing's 'last line of defense'

by Tech. Sgt. Peter R. Miller
440 AW

11/16/2014 - POPE ARMY AIRFIELD, N.C. -- Tech. Sgt. Josh Dinger, a 440th Maintenance Squadron aircraft metals technician here, blasts heavy metal music that echoes through the cavernous metal fabrication shop.  Hard riffs and screams reverberate off the concrete floor, steel roof and cinderblock walls as he intently uses denatured alcohol to free a stick of aluminum from carbon contaminates. Lines of pristinely maintained mills, lathes, and toolboxes await his orders in a perpetual formation.

Dinger is a metals technician who creates parts for twelve C-130 Hercules cargo planes assigned to the 440th Airlift Wing, here.  He uses industrial metalworking tools to fashion raw steel and aluminum stock into working aircraft components, and there is more to him than tattooed arms and heavy metal.

"I can say 'I am the sole creator,'" said Dinger.  "I can create anything I am willing and able to envision.  Creativity and imagination are the only limitations in this shop."

Dinger can weld anything with the right techniques and filler materials, he said.

"We are given a blueprint or an idea, and we work with a solid piece of metal to create a functional aircraft part," he said.  "There's nothing we can't do.  When one of our machines goes down, we can make a replacement part or repair it.  The possibilities are endless.  If we broke a lathe, we could make a new one if we needed to."

Custom fabricated tools make mechanic's lives easier, he said.  Some of the maintenance on the C-130 is done within very tight spaces where an ordinary wrench will not fit.  While commercial tool manufacturers can create tools to solve this issue, the metals shop can do the same thing at a much lower cost.

"We call them 'local manufactures,' custom tools that let a mechanic do a one-and-a-half hour job in 14 or 15 minutes," he said.  "We can alter tool lengths, widths, handles and dimensions, or we can create something completely new.  We could make a piston for a car, bore an engine block; we can do anything."

Dinger's ability to fabricate long out-of-production aircraft components has led him to call the metals shop the wing's "last line of defense."

"A lot of people rely on you because they don't make a lot of these parts anymore," he said.  "Sure, the mechanics could borrow the part from another aircraft, but what happens when that one breaks?  They would have to take planes off the flight line to keep one in the air."