Airmen keep ground equipment working, mission flying OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM -- Staff Sgt. Michael Snow troubleshoots a fuel gauge malfunction on a Hobart-86 at a forward-deployed location. He is an aerospace ground equipment mechanic with the 28th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. (Digitally altered U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jocelyn Rich) by Master Sgt. Rich Romero 40th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs 7/20/2005 - OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN) -- Even though they are maintainers, they do not turn a single wrench on a jet. But without them neither does anyone else. Bomber aerospace ground equipment Airmen work around-the-clock to maintain a 95.9-percent in-commission rate on the 121 pieces of equipment maintainers, back shops, weapons loaders and munitions Airmen at this forward-deployed location need. Some of those pieces include portable air conditioners, aircraft jacks, bomb-lift trucks, maintenance stands, air compressors and generators that supply power to portable lights for night missions. “We support everyone who works on the flightline,” said Senior Airman Benjamin McFarland, an AGE technician with the 40th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron deployed from Minot Air Force Base, N.D. “There’s no airpower without ground power.” To keep the ground power grinding away, AGE Airmen perform about 21 periodic inspections and about 200 repairs monthly. Every two weeks, they also conduct service inspections on every piece of equipment in the inventory. On a daily basis, they conduct about 20 service dispatches, Sergeant Schneider said. Such reliability is what the maintenance squadron expects, said Airman 1st Class David Sartin, another AGE technician from Minot. “Reliable equipment is our most important contribution,” he said. “They rely on it to work when they need it, particularly in this environment where we’re flying combat missions.” With such a small shop, the unit is not divided into separate sections like at home. Usually, a maintenance section fixes equipment, an inspection section performs required inspections, dispatch servicing moves equipment to and from the flightline, and production support maintains technical orders, specialty tools and other benchstock items. “With only five people per 12-hour shift, everybody does everything,” Airman McFarland said. And that is just fine by Airman Sartin. “I enjoy the variety of work we get to do,” he said. “It’s all maintenance, but every piece has different problems. There’s something different every day.”

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