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Small shop has large responsibility Engine Management power behind mission

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class David Dobrydney
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
Southwest Asia --  In a harsh, unforgiving environment such as Southwest Asia, complicated machinery like aircraft engines can have parts wear out or break more frequently than normal. When this happens, the Engine Management Section of the 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Operations Squadron is there to provide a new engine as soon as possible.

"We perform all uninstalled engine tracking, shipping, receiving, scheduling, documentation and control," said Base Engine Manager Tech. Sgt. Scott Marchesseault, deployed here from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.

Sergeant Marchesseault and Staff Sgt. Lindsey Ferguson comprise the entire staff of this small shop and are responsible for five different types of aircraft engines. When an engine is removed, the Aircraft Maintenance Unit will document what repairs need to be accomplished. With that report, Sergeant Marchesseault will contact the major command at which that particular aircraft is assigned and coordinate the return of the unserviceable engine and the shipping of the replacement engine.

In the month of August, 21 engines came in while 17 went out for repair. For each one, Sergeants Marchesseault and Ferguson compiled the engine's serial number, what specifically went wrong with it, and the troubleshooting methods that had been used to determine the need to remove the engine from the aircraft. Following these procedures, the engine is readied for shipping through the Traffic Management Office.

"One engine may have three or four places where they can be sent for repair," Sergeant Marchesseault said, "For example, B-1B [Lancer] engines can be sent to Ellsworth [AFB, S.D.], Dyess [AFB, Texas] or Tinker [AFB, Okla.]. I make a shipping document package, weigh the engine and tow it to the [Air Mobility Command] yard. From there I turn over the part to AMC at which point they take responsibility." For engines on their way here, Sergeant Marchesseault is notified as soon as they are shipped.

"I track [the engines] on a daily basis to see where they are and when they'll be here. When they arrive, we pick them up from the AMC yard, sign for the cargo and take them to our storage facility."

Communication can be a challenge in engine management, both for getting the engines out and bringing them in.

"The users who have the information on engines needing replacement are the maintainers out on the flightline, because they're not always easy to get a hold of," Sergeant Marchesseault said. He also said the time difference between here and stateside bases is another challenge. "Weekends and holidays especially put a lag in our ability to contact people. We try to get a jump on requests at the end of the week so we can get everything we need ahead of time. Once an engine is in transit, it will roll right through the weekend," he said.

Another challenge the engine management section recently overcame involved the number of engines the section is authorized to have on hand at any given time. For one particular airframe, the number allowed was so low that no engines could be held in reserve, leaving aircraft sitting idle while the engines were en route. "As soon as an engine came in it would be taken out for installation; the pace was that fast," Sergeant Marchesseault said. In an example of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, Sergeant Marchesseault measured how long the engines took to arrive and the rate at which they were needed, then successfully convinced U.S. Air Forces Central Command to raise the number of authorized engines. This allowed more engines to be ordered at one time, ultimately lowering the number of aircraft that had to stay on the ground waiting for a new engine.

Keeping track of aircraft engines is time-consuming work, but the Engine Management Section understands how their job fits into the overall mission.

"They are the unsung heroes of the EMOS," said 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Operation Squadron Commander Maj. April Mench. "Without their diligence, we wouldn't have engines ready to hang and the mission would stop."

"What we do may not be flashy, but it's not unimportant," Sergeant Marchesseault said. "It keeps the mission going."