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Maintenance wizards: 'We can fix anything'

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jake Richmond
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFPN) --  An A-10 Thunderbolt II is made up of thousands of unique components and parts, most of which are essential for the jet to take flight. When one of them breaks, the aircraft is grounded until it gets repaired.

For that aircraft, the mission stops. The part often can't be fixed on the spot, which means sorties are missed, flying hours are lost and schedules are changed. Everybody from the commander to the crew chief starts getting anxious.

When will the part be fixed? When can this plane get back in the air?

Like superheroes with tool belts, the Airmen in the Air Force Repair Enhancement Program shop here come to the rescue.

"We can fix anything," said Tech. Sgt. Jarrett May, an AFREP technician here.

Part of the 355th Maintenance Group's quality assurance section, the six-person AFREP shop is manned by five Air Force maintainers and a civilian supply technician. They are there to quickly repair difficult parts and, generally, to fix anything that's old, unrecognizable and otherwise deemed unfixable.

The maintainers hail from various Air Force job specialties, but they have one thing in common. They were hand-picked for AFREP and had to attend a rigorous six-week training course here on base. The training focuses on precise repair methods foreign to most maintainers, including work with circuit cards, microscopes and micro-soldering equipment.

Many of the components they're taught to fix fall into the mission-capable category, "MICAP" for short, which are those parts an A-10 absolutely needs in order to fly. So far this fiscal year, D-M's AFREP shop sustained a 100 percent repair rate on 51 MICAP requests.

The only other alternative to repairing such parts is to ship them to a regional supply depot, like the one at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and then wait. The part will either be fixed or replaced and then it will be shipped back.

"Even with a MICAP rush, that whole process routinely takes two or three days," said Staff Sgt. Robert Brutto, an AFREP technician here. "Here, our office MICAP policy is that we don't leave until the part is fixed. We've gotten every MICAP part fixed the same day we got it."

Of course, their workload isn't exclusively MICAP requests.

"In addition to aircraft parts, we've fixed radar guns, treadmills, televisions, laptop computers, cameras and even coffee machines," said Todd Zickel, the AFREP supply technician.

Because of the variety of items the AFREP Airmen can repair and their rapid fix time, the office saves the Air Force enormous amounts of money, D-M officials said.  In Fiscal 2006, the shop alone saved more than $5 million. Every year, the Air Force allows all those savings to be allocated directly to the wing's budget, to be spent at the discretion of the wing commander.

Some of the base-wide benefits made possible last year by AFREP savings included the construction of the personnel development center and the skate park, the purchase of more than 800 new computers and cardiovascular fitness equipment, and renovations for the 355th MXG building.

For their recent efforts, the D-M AFREP shop was named Workcenter of the Month by the local chapter of the Air Force Association.

"AFREP is one of the greatest logistics success stories in Air Force history," said Col. Dennis W. Shumaker, 355th MXG commander.  "It is a critical resource that keeps A-10s flying here at D-M and across the Air Force."

Despite AFREP's numerous attributes, discussions of budget realignments at the major-command level have engendered fears that the program won't see funding beyond the next fiscal year.

Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg, the director of air and space operations at Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley AFB, Va., visited the base recently and made time to stop by the shop and talk to the AFREP technicians.

After nearly an hour spent discussing AFREP's value to ACC and the combat Air Force, General Raaberg seemed impressed.

"I get the picture," he said, "and I'm convinced." 

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