Airmen calibrate for mission success

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Brok McCarthy
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) --  Airmen who work in the 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory here play a vital role for warfighters as the calibrate and test equipment critical to mission accomplishment

They service equipment from approximately 320 units in the area of responsibility and ensure more than 15,000 pieces of test equipment are properly calibrated for warriors going into harm's way.

With only 20 Airmen assigned and the only PMEL in the U.S. Air Force Central Command area of responsibility, managing that much equipment can be challenging.

"We support an inventory very close to what some of the larger Air Force labs support, and they can have up to 75 people," said Senior Master Sgt. Rex Rankin, the test, measurement and diagnostic equipment flight chief deployed from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. "This is the busiest PMEL in the Air Force. Given the fact that the Air Force standard is 93 percent, consider then that the current 96 percent equipment availability rate in the AOR is an amazing accomplishment. We are setting the standard for other teams that will follow us."

Over the past year, the wing has had an average equipment availability rate of around 94 percent, but that has changed since the current rotation arrived. The native of Daytona Beach, Fla., said there were several reasons for the recent availability rate increase.

"We have had the opportunity to get closure on some of our long-standing maintenance issues and we have actively engaged some of the work centers out in the AOR to try to help them better manage their equipment accounts," Sergeant Rankin said. "The biggest impact though has been the extraordinary effort of this 20-man team, who have come together to create this cohesive unit of maintainers ... and whose number one goal is to support the mission. It has been incredible to watch this team perform."

On average, the lab receives about 65 items a day, which it will have calibrated and shipped back to the customer within two days. That translates into about 2,000 maintenance actions per month.

The types of calibrations typically fall into three categories. The first category is electrical standards, which deals with voltage, current and resistance-type measurements. Typically equipment used to test munitions fall into this category, as well.

The second area deals with wave-form generation and analysis, which is mostly communications equipment like spectrum analyzers or oscilloscopes.

"It's the kind of stuff they'd use at American Forces Network or in the communications squadron to do satellite uplink, or even the flightline radars," Sergeant Rankin said.

The last category deals with the physical dimensional sciences, to include pressure, torque, tension, weight, optics, linear and temperature. This is also the section of PMEL most people are familiar with. 

"The first thing people think of when you say PMEL is, 'Oh, you calibrate our torque wrenches,'" said Tech. Sgt. Thomas Bowen, the PMEL physical dimensional section supervisor deployed from Langley Air Force Base, Va. "The largest volume of our work comes from those and aircraft gauges."

One of the biggest difficulties PMEL had to overcome is not having their own facility. Currently the 379th EMXS Avionics Flight is sharing floor space to allow PMEL Airmen to work.

The $1 million facility PMEL will eventually occupy is scheduled for completion in October. In addition to providing more work space, the facility will also allow PMEL Airmen to better control temperature and humidity, which can create a work stoppage for them if conditions aren't just right.

"We can't work on electronics if the area is under 20 percent humidity because of the potential to damage sensitive electronic equipment," said Tech. Sgt. Robert Wilkins, the flight's laboratory chief. "If you drag your feet across carpet and then touch someone, you zap them with about 20,000 volts of electricity. You can get the same effect from low levels of humidity, so we have to monitor levels closely otherwise we might accidently damage a sensitive component in a piece of equipment."

Sergeant Rankin said the outstanding work done by the Airmen of this PMEL has made them like the wizards behind the curtain.

"A lot of times, people don't really know what we do, and in a way that's good, because that means they have the test equipment they need to execute their mission," Sergeant Rankin said. "The volume of work we have here is unparalleled, so this 96 percent availability rate is uncharted territory for the wing. To have a 20-man team providing that, and being able to turn equipment around in two days is absolutely phenomenal."