Crew chiefs ensure aircraft complete mission

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Megan P. Lyon
  • 366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho --  A typical day for a crew chief is no walk in the park -- long hours, grueling work, extreme weather conditions -- all while completing a job vital to the Air Force mission. Add in an Operational Readiness Exercise in which the crew chiefs must prepare an entire fleet of aircraft for a rapid deployment and a typical day at work is anything but.

When the Phase I portion of Exercise Sharpshooter 08-04 kicked off Feb. 22, 366th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chiefs began pre-generating F-15E Strike Eagles for a simulated short-notice deployment.

"During the Phase I, the operations tempo becomes faster and the pressure really builds," said Tech. Sgt. John Hatfield, 389th Aircraft Maintenance Unit crew chief and shift leader.

The labors of a crew chief can be broken into three phases; pre-generation, generation and re-generation efforts.

During an ORE, aircraft pre-generation efforts begin after the wing receives the Prepare to Deploy Order, which spells out how many aircraft must launch when the Deployment Order drops. Crew chiefs and other maintainers are then allowed to pre-generate a percentage of the total number of aircraft required for the deployment.

Aircraft are configured to support upcoming missions identified in the air tasking order. This includes mounting external and conformal fuel tanks, conducting routine and scheduled maintenance, hanging weapon stations and loading specific munitions.

For crew chiefs, the bottom line is ensuring the jets are ready to launch with the appropriate configuration and zero discrepancies. To make sure all the aircraft are standardized and prepped safely, crew chiefs follow detailed instructions, called technical orders, each step of the way.

"While we train to keep our aircraft ready year-round, the ORE scenario provides extra training with components and systems we may not deal with on a daily basis stateside," said Staff Sgt. Justin Toler, 391st AMU crew chief. "We don't often fly with the conformal fuel tanks mounted. These tanks enable the F-15Es to fly for longer periods of time without support from an aerial refueling tanker."

Once the DEPORD drops, crew chiefs are allowed to beginning turning over the pre-generated aircraft to the inspector general for inspection and, hopefully, acceptance. Simultaneously, they begin generating the remaining aircraft with the overall goal of getting the required number of aircraft generated, accepted and launched on time.
During an ORE, a crew chief knows that half the battle is done when they hear jet after jet launch out to the simulated deployment location. The remaining challenge is to re-generate the aircraft in a set number of hours upon landing. This simulates recovering the aircraft landing at the deployed location and preparing them for their first combat mission.

Re-generation includes refueling the aircraft, loading munitions and performing an in-depth inspection of the airframe, engines, landing gear, flight control surfaces and fluid levels.

While juggling all that work, the 366th AMXS must manage their crew chiefs' shifts carefully to make sure there are enough people available to perform the work while others process through the personnel deployment function line to simulate deploying.

"The Airmen in this career field have to be resilient, tough and willing to adapt to daily challenges," said Master Sgt. Charles Beard, 391st AMU superintendent. "These guys make the flying mission happen. They run the flight line."

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