Ops center maintains smooth info flow

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Andrew Gates
  • 455th Expeditionary Operations Group Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) --  When an A-10 Thunderbolt II lands after a mission protecting ground forces, it is critical to know what needs to be fixed before it is ready to take off again.

Making sure the right people know what needs to be fixed and coordinating that maintenance is one of three jobs facing 354th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron maintenance operations center Airmen, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Broadwell said.

The team is also involved with getting maintenance debriefings from the pilots and tracking the thousands of repairs completed each day on the A-10 fleet.

“For instance, when a pilot returns from flying, (he or she) comes in to us and reports the plane’s status on landing,” Sergeant Broadwell said. “If it’s ready to fly, the pilot will report it ‘Code 1.’ If it has minor maintenance issues, but can still fly, it’s ‘Code 2,’ and if it shouldn’t fly before certain repairs are complete, the pilot will report it ‘Code 3.’”

“When the pilot lands, he gives us flight information, such as how long he flew and if he had problems with the jet,” Senior Airman Duffy Reid said. “We ask the pilots questions to pull more information from them, if needed.”

With A-10s flying around the clock, the Airmen at the center match flightline operations.

“Anytime there’s someone on the flightline, there’s someone in the operations center,” Airman Reid said.

When repairs on the A-10s are complete, the information is input into an electronic database.

“We need to keep track of what was wrong with the aircraft and what broke; we can determine trends and perhaps anticipate what might break,” Sergeant Broadwell said. “It’s also critical to making sure we have the right parts on order, to minimize the time an aircraft is on the ground for repairs.”

This information comes from repeat and reoccurring repairs.

“As we monitor the write-ups, we can see if something has been breaking a lot,” Sergeant Broadwell said. “We determine where the problem lies -- if it happens to be an environmental issue or if we are having problems with parts.”

“We take information from various sources and distribute it to the appropriate agencies,” Airman Reid said. “We get the status on aircraft, engines and avionics, among many other types of information, and forward that up to the group, wing and higher headquarters agencies. People at the major command and Air Force level need to know which aircraft are mission capable and able to do the mission.”

The Airmen also track the schedule and determine which aircraft took off early or late.

“If there is some rate to be tracked, we track it,” Sergeant Broadwell said. “That information is used to determine the flying schedule effectiveness. They schedule flights at a specific time for specific reasons.”

Some of those specific reasons involve money, Sergeant Broadwell said.

“The Air Force allocates a certain amount of money for flying hours,” he said. “If a flight is cut short or goes long the wing loses money. We need to keep careful track of all those hours.”

In the back of a busy maintenance hangar, the Airmen in the maintenance operations center see little of the day-to-day flying activity their efforts support. But that does not mean that they are less important to it.

“We know we’re sending A-10s out, and they are coming back and landing,” Airman Reid said. “We hear about how the A-10s are support the missions when the pilots come back and debrief. It’s great that Afghanistan is trying to go to a more democratic government, and that we will have an ally in the (region).”