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Engineers work together to solve problems at Kandahar

  • Published
  • By Maj. David Kurle
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Airmen deployed all over the world overcome obstacles every day in order to get the mission done.

Here in Southwest Afghanistan, two of those Airmen collaborated to build antennas for radio communications between pilots and a replacement air traffic control facility built here to improve airfield and flight operations.

When members of the 215th Engineering Installation Squadron, from the Washington Air National Guard, arrived here in May, their task was to install new UHF and VHF radio antennas. After taking inventory of the parts that were delivered and what they needed to do, the engineers found they had the poles and antennas, but no way to mount the antennas to the poles.

That's when Master Sgt. Curtis Conner, the 215th team chief, turned to Master Sgt. Frank Swygert of the 451st Expeditionary Civil Engineer Flight, deployed here from Dover Air Force Base, Del.

"Basically they came and said, 'we have a problem,'" Sergeant Swygert said. "They had antennas to put up, but no mounting hardware, which no one realized until the stuff arrived."

Not only was the mounting hardware missing, but so were the cross arms to hold the antennas, as well as braces to keep them stable.

As a CE flight, the 451st is tasked with airfield support, which means it's not manned, nor equipped, for base support, which includes building structures and certainly not building mounts for radio antennas.

The first challenge was to find usable metal the team could use to fabricate parts for the antennas. At Kandahar, the exact parts needed for the project were not available, and relying on the supply system would take time they didn't have.

"We kind of realized the situation they were in because we weren't much better off ourselves," Sergeant Swygert said. "About the time we were ready to give up we came up with an idea."

Sergeant Conner scoured the base for the parts they would need to build the mounts, crossbars and braces.

"One of our missing pieces was a water pipe found alongside the road," Sergeant Conner said. "Through modification and ingenuity we were able to make it work because parts and hardware on this installation are hard to come by."

The next obstacle was the lack of welding equipment, because it was obvious the parts would have to be fabricated from the metal they had by welding pieces together.

However, the CE flight did have an acetylene torch designed to cut metal.

Sergeant Swygert relied on his experience as a former civil engineer instructor and came up with a plan involving a technique called "Oxy-acetylene" or "gas" welding.

"Most people have not gas welded since they left tech. school," Sergeant Swygert said. "To be honest, if I hadn't just gotten out of being an instructor and practicing it, we may not have even considered it."

So using a piece of equipment designed to cut metal, rather than welding it together, Staff Sgt. Joseph Boll, also from the 451st CEF, and Sergeant Swygert went to work fabricating the needed hardware.

"The cross bars were no problem, it was just a matter of cutting angle-iron," he said. "The pole mounts however, those were a problem."

To mount the antennas to the poles, Sergeant Swygert cut the 3 1/2-inch pipe found by the side of the road into sections. Then he cut those sections apart and spread the pipe so that the pipe would fit over the 4 1/2-inch antennas.

The procedure worked and the 215th EIS went to work constructing the antennas for the new ATC facility.

"It took both of us, sitting down trying to come up with ideas, because we had limited resources here," Sergeant Conner said. "I couldn't have done it without the CE crew."

Capt. Matt Altman, commander of the 451st CEF, said he is proud of the work his team has done while deployed here.

"They really have adapted and gotten creative in overcoming a lack of parts," he said. "There's something about this environment, troops just take whatever they've got and get the job done."