Osan airmen keep engines ready

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Tom Montgomery
  • 51st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (AFPN) --  There are at least five fluids required to keep the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft’s TF-34 turbofan engines running: fuel, lubricant, blood, sweat and tears.

The 51st Maintenance Squadron’s propulsion flight airmen here have all 11 of their spare A-10 engines ready and waiting in case one is needed.

“We came within one engine of tripling our war-reserve engine requirement,” said Master Sgt. Steve Lenczuk, the flight’s chief. War reserves are the minimum amount of supplies a base must have to be combat-ready. At some bases, war-reserve requirements are sometimes only barely met.

The success is shared with the propulsion shop airmen at Kadena Air Base, Japan. Two of the 11 engines are stored and maintained there.

“This is the first time in my 20-plus years on the TF-34 to see an engine shop at 100-percent spares,” said Senior Master Sgt. Jeff Egler, Pacific Air Forces propulsion superintendent at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

The airline-style engines are built to last. They do not run at very high temperatures and are based on simple, tough and proven technologies developed more than 30 years ago. In fact, TF-34s are no longer produced because they are so old, according to officials.

Therefore, spare engines are like treasured heirlooms passed down from airman to airman through the years, always carefully looked after.

“The A-10 motor takes some old-school techniques (to) put that sucker together,” said Staff Sgt. Dennis Martin, a propulsion flight production supervisor. “It’s one motor that makes you earn your money.”

Careful scheduling and planning of engine maintenance is what made this possible, according to Lenczuk.

“We also send our folks out to the flightline to check on the engine maintenance procedures and provide guidance,” he said. The advice helps flightline maintainers keep the engines in shape so they do not have to be removed from the airplane for major fixes at the propulsion flight.

Maintaining the old engines with a limited supply of parts is an ever-present challenge for maintainers.

The engines here are often repaired with parts obtained from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., commonly referred to as the “boneyard.”

“Other maintainers in the Air Force might read this and say ‘that’s impossible’ when they see what we’ve done,” said Martin.