KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- The 62nd Aircraft Maintenance Unit consists of a team of Airmen and civilians who play a critical role in assisting warfighters by providing reliable aircraft designed to provide real-time intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and precision attack missions.
The members of this unit work on the MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers.
Without their technical expertise, operators would not be able to fly these assets. Their ability to quickly service these aircraft for airborne operations provides a critical eye in the skies for ground commanders to have visibility on activity with pinpoint accuracy and engage in attacks against time-critical targets.
The Hunters, which are able to fly for many hours, must constantly perform scheduled maintenance. Crewmembers must conduct many types of inspections based on the number of hours the aircraft has flown.
"What they do is truly remarkable," said Capt. Rebecca Hart, officer in charge of the MQ-1 Predator maintenance crew. "One of the main maintenance activities we do is engine overhaul. These guys are actually able to pull these engines after 360, 720 or 1,080 hours of flight and get it airborne the next day. I've seen them, in a single shift, take the whole engine out, get another engine from the shop, install it, gas it up, and have it ready to go for the next mission. It's pretty amazing."
"On an MQ-9, we do an engine change every 2,000 hours," said Ron Madland, MQ-9 Reaper maintenance site manager. "It's a different type of engine, a turbo prop, which runs on JP8 fuel."
The MQ-9 Reaper is a much larger aircraft than the MQ-1 Predator and carries a larger payload, but they both have pods that are able to distinguish targets on the ground at very high resolutions.
The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper maintenance organization is managed by civilians, including field service representatives from Raytheon and L-3; and the MQ-1 Predators are maintained by Airmen.
"We're a lot smaller team than the military," said Mr. Madland. "We work well with the Air Force, the Army and the other agencies here, but we work primarily with the Air Force and the fuel contractors."
Both the Airmen and civilians are deployed from Creech AFB, Nev. When they redeploy, a new group arrives here from the same homestation.
"Every 120 days, we replace ourselves; so there's always an opportunity to come back," said Captain Hart. "We're not passing the torch to someone else, so it is in our best interest to stabilize this program and make ways of doing things on this base better. We continuously strive for improvement."
But even though they are thousands of miles away from home, their quality of maintenance and compliance to technical data still remains the same.
"We need to do it right all the time everywhere we go," said Mr. Madland.
"I think the only thing that's different is the number of hours we fly compared to home station just how close we are to the mission... we fly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week here in support of ground troops," said Captain Hart. "It's really neat to see how everything comes together because we're right next door to operations and we see what they're doing everyday. We get the big picture being here versus being at home."
Both Captain Hart and Mr. Madland agreed that one of the challenges they face here is not having a full library of technical guidance for these aircraft.
"The technical data has not matured as others have, such as the F-16 (Falcons), which have been around for a long time with a lot of documentation of problems and engineering information," said Mr. Madland. "These are all new aircraft. The MQ-9 was actually fielded approximately 18 months before it was scheduled to be released to the Air Force in response to what was going on here in this part of the world."
When faced with anomalies they have not encountered before, many times the maintainers must request assistance from engineers regarding new problems or new challenges which may require a new fix or part that may not be listed in their illustrated parts breakdown.
"They do it rather quickly, but I think that's kind of a challenge as opposed to it just readily available," said Captain Hart.
But this challenge also gives the maintainers an opportunity to provide inputs on better ways to conduct business or suggestions of things which may need to be changed. Once their changes have been granted, they are incorporated into the library of technical data.
One thing these maintainers are currently working on improving is their engine shop. "We are constantly looking at better ways to conduct business in line with AFSO 21, including reducing waste and streamlining our work centers," said Captain Hart. "For example, they intend to get larger work stations to replace the smaller tables which are barely big enough to place the engines on, let alone spread out all of the components for routine maintenance.
These crewmembers work hard day in and day out to bring an important piece to the table in order for the mission to be successful here in Afghanistan.
"These aircraft bring a lot of value to the other warfighters - whether you're talking Army, Marines, or NATO forces, they all look to this platform to assist them in finding targets on the ground," said Mr. Madland.
The key to any mission's success is the people.
"You can't get any closer to the mission, so, I think it's really easy to translate what's going on beyond the wire and how my guys are contributing to that mission," said Captain Hart. "They really work hard out there and I'm really proud of what they do. I'm just happy to be a part of this team."