Hill shop helps Soldiers see in the dark

  • Published
  • By Bill Orndorff
  • 309th Maintenance Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (AFPN) --  Repair work by a few technicians in one of the 309th Electronics Maintenance Group's shops here is helping Soldiers see in the dark.

Electronics and instruments branch workers repair single-lens night-vision goggles for Soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, while they rotate in and out from duty in Iraq, officials said.

"Our goal is to repair the goggles to ... like-new condition,” said Scott Stokes, branch chief.

"Normally when we get these sets of goggles in, they're missing eyepieces or (other pieces)," said Craig Griffin, night-vision goggles repair shop supervisor. "They are all pretty dirty. They're smashed, broken and a lot of things are wrong with them.

"What we're doing is a more extensive field-level repair. In many cases, we're exceeding what the field unit does," Mr. Griffin said. "We've seen some units bring the goggles in and do a quick brush-off on them and call it good. We found out in tearing them down that there's pretty much sand in everything… You can hear the grit sliding back and forth inside."

The goggles go through several steps where each part is cleaned with canned air and lens paper, then tested. A person in each work area carefully inspects what was done in the previous area.

"We're all trained to do the whole repair process,” Mr. Griffin said. “The good part about this is that everyone checks what is done. We are always constantly checking everything in the process to make sure the Soldiers out there get the best they can get."

One capability the shop has, fixing a ribbon cable in the housing, by itself saves the Army more than $200 per set of goggles, he said.

"What the (Soldiers) did before when they needed a ribbon cable was order the whole back housing for about $300 apiece," Mr. Griffin said. "The ribbon cable ... costs less than $80 apiece."

The shop workers can completely repair and refurbish the kits in about three hours, while some repair facilities take as long as 15 hours, Mr. Griffin said. It costs the Army between $200 and $500 to have the Hill crew repair each kit, compared to $5,000 for a new set, he said.