Fuels flight powers Tallil

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Bob Oldham
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  In late March, they were some of the first Air Force airmen on the ground here and were instrumental in the air war effort against Saddam Hussein’s army, increasing the loiter time of A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft by providing the planes additional fuel.

Almost a year later and with the original fuels crew long gone, 23 members of the 407th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron’s fuels flight are keeping the fuel flowing --about 1.1 million gallons every month -- to generators, aircraft and base vehicles.

“Everyone here on base, the entire coalition forces, all get their fuel from us initially,” said 1st Lt. Peter Lington, the base fuels officer deployed here from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.

The lieutenant’s team makes about 1,750 fuel deliveries a month to customers, including the Dutch, Italians, Romanians, South Koreans and the U.S. Army.

Every time airmen use hot water, turn on a light or drive a vehicle, they can thank a fuels troop, said the lieutenant. It is the fuel that runs the generators that provide electricity for hot water and lights.

Flight members monitor more than 960,000 gallons of fuel -- aviation fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel -- in fuel bladders dispersed around base. More importantly, they monitor the bladders themselves. The bladders, according to Master Sgt. Dwight Collins, the base fuels manager deployed here from Yokota Air Base, Japan, are prone to leak in the harsh Iraqi environment, requiring maintenance. A fuel bladder that cannot hold fuel can have a negative impact on the base’s mission and damage the environment.

“Our storage has been our biggest challenge,” said the lieutenant. “We’ve had to do a lot of repairs, fix a lot of leaks.”

Being here during the rainy season has also complicated matters for the flight.

“We were getting two or three trucks stuck a day,” Sergeant Collins said. “Our transportation brethren did a great job. They basically followed us around and pulled us out.”

Flight members worked with the base civil engineers to improve unloading operations at various points around base, which they hope will help future rotations when the rainy season comes again.

Besides storing and distributing fuel, flight airmen operate a laboratory to test fuel, a command-and-control center to track the flight’s activities and a vehicle maintenance shop to repair the flight’s fleet of vehicles, which includes nine R-11 refueling trucks and three smaller trucks for gasoline and diesel. In addition, the cryogenics section stores liquid oxygen used by aircrews and the medical group’s patients to breathe and liquid nitrogen for use in emergency fire suppression and to “air up” aircraft tires.

Whether it is seeing a C-130 Hercules flying overhead, taking a hot shower at night or working under a bright light in a tent, the members of the fuels flight have numerous daily reminders of how vital their job is to the success of the base.