Twitter
Facebook
***image1***One by one, seven staff sergeants from the 86th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron raised their hands Monday and took an oath in front of their commanders and colleagues.
They are Dedicated Crew Chiefs for C-130E Hercules aircraft now. And with that title comes a special kind of responsibility.
They are each assigned to watch over and maintain the health of one C-130E. It’s their bird. It’s their name painted on the side of the aircraft.
“They are responsible for the air-worthiness of the plane from nose to tail,” said Chief Master Sgt. James Bell, 86th AMXS maintenance supervisor.
That means that every bit of maintenance, routine and otherwise, must be personally checked out by them. It’s on them that everything on that plane is maintained to Air Force standards from every light to every gauge to every bolt. And when they give it a go, that plane is in the air and on a mission.
“It’s an enormous responsibility to take care of those aircraft,” said Maj. Roger Klaffka, 86th AMXS commander.
In July, Ramstein received two additional C-130Es from Yokota Air Base in Japan, putting Ramstein’s C-130E inventory at 17. Each of those planes is assigned a crew of three or four Airmen, with one being the Dedicated Crew Chief – that one person who knows everything about the plane, all the ins and outs from the little nagging problems to foreseeing and heading off major trouble. That’s not always easy on a bird brought into service in 1962. But, Ramstein’s Dedicated Crew Chiefs see to it that the C-130Es keep flying.
“DCCs are the first line of defense,” Major Klaffka said. “The mission begins on the ramp with the DCC.”
Knowledge is their best maintenance strategy, said Staff Sgt. Korey Clark, who is assigned to one of the C-130Es that came in from Japan. It’s a job that requires dedication and time – including free time – learning all they can about their plane, he said.
“I’m still learning,” he said. “I spend a lot of extra time here – most of us have to.”
It’s knowing the problems of the plane, assessing them and getting them resolved, said Staff Sgt. Brian Mittelbach, who took the Dedicated Crew Chief oath Monday. The objective of the Dedicated Crew Chief program is to directly assign a maintanance person to each aircraft to provide continuity in the maintenance of the plane. The value is ownership. Dedicated Crew Chiefs take pride in their planes, wanting them to look better and run better than the next.
“Our plane is our plane,” Sergeant Mittelbach said. “We follow the descrepancies; we know everything about the plane.”
A Dedicated Crew Chief’s day is spent inspecting the plane, repairing it and replacing broken parts, said Staff Sgt. Benjamin Comer.
“We make sure all the work is done,” Sergeant Comer said. “We are basically the last set of eyes.”
If something’s not right, a Dedicated Crew Chief can halt a flying mission until everything checks out, Chief Bell said.
At last, the Dedicated Crew Chief inspects the plane with the aircrew’s flight engineer and then signs off on the health of the aircraft.
In some ways, Dedicated Crew Chiefs are like surgeons, holding life in their hands, said Col. Robert Burnett, 86th Maintenance Group commander.
“When you think about it,” he told the new Dedicated Crew Chiefs, “you operate on airplanes.”
Only crew chiefs hold many lives in their hands –the five-member flying crew and all the people the plane flies safely over, he said.
“You guys have a lot of responsibility,” Colonel Burnett told the new Dedicated Crew Chiefs. “I know you are up to it.”
