Intermediate repair facility keeps tankers flying

Published Feb. 29, 2008
By Senior Airman Carolyn Viss
379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- One back shop in Southwest Asia can boast that they keep all deployed military aircraft in the air 24 hours a day. They do it by repairing tanker parts in theater, allowing in-flight refueling that keeps the fight going.

The central intermediate repair facility, the only KC-135 brake shop in theater, gets 30 to 50 brakes back into service every month, saving the time and money it would take to ship worn parts back for repairs. The tankers are responsible for in-flight refueling of most U.S. and coalition aircraft.

"When brakes come in from the flightline, we swap 'em out with a serviceable set and tear them apart," said Tech. Sgt. Jon Shumard, 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron CIRF hydraulics section chief deployed from Grand Forks, N.D. "It's dirty work, but these guys do a bang-up job."

After disassembling the brakes, they clean, fix, and send the parts to the corrosion shop to be repainted, and then rebuild them so they can be sent to supply and put straight on the waiting aircraft - all in about two to three days.

"It's a non-stop mission here," he said. "If it weren't for the KC-135s, bombs wouldn't be on target. You gotta have '135s to refuel all the fighters. That's a direct impact on the mission, which gives us all a tremendous amount of job satisfaction."

Staff Sgt. Charles Crespo, a CIRF hydraulic craftsman deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., left Puerto Rico to join the Air Force shortly after 9/11. He came here because he wanted to do something to help fight the Global War on Terrorism. Back home, he was an electronics maintainer in a factory, and said he feels right at home in the hydraulics career field. This is his fourth deployment in five years.

Staff Sgt. Mark Hughes, a CIRF hydraulics craftsman, said a stratotanker can get about 250 landings out of a brake before the wear indicator pistons show they need to be changed.

Each 250-pound brake they fix in-theater helps keep the flightline full of tankers that are taking off and landing instead of sitting on the ground waiting 15 days for a new brake.
"We also service aircraft from other countries," the New Orleans, La., native said. In four and a half years of service, he's deployed twice, leaving his wife behind at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. "Tankers go everywhere and refuel every kind of aircraft, so they're a vital part of the fleet."

Although they miss their families far across the ocean, all three men agree the work is rewarding. They work right across the street from the flightline, where they can see and hear everything going on, day and night.

"Back home, what we do is mostly for training purposes - here, it's real-world stuff we see happening," Sergeant Hughes said. "Every time we hear the planes taking off and landing, we know it's because of the work we're doing right now."