Armament flight makes improvements, saves time

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Jamie L. Coggan
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The 355th Equipment Maintenance Squadron armament flight here has initiated a self-help program resulting in mass restoration of equipment.

The flight, which is responsible for all armament for D-M's A-10s and EC130s, has not only re-painted and re-done the offices with the help of field training detachment students, they have built a conference room, break room and laid down new tile.

More importantly, after an Air Force Smart Operations 21 inspection at the end of April, the flight has reduced their equipment inspection time. For example, gun inspections used to take 72 hours to perform, and have now been reduced to 36 hours.

"We are trying to make this place a home away from home," said Senior MSgt. Castillo Guillermo, armament flight superintendent. "But ultimately, our goal is for a pilot to be able to drop a bomb on the enemy. That could be a high velocity enemy getting away, and that's the last thing we need."

Initially, maintainers were walking 100 yards to get technical data, tools, supplies and equipment an average of 40 to 50 times a day. Now that often used equipment is kept at the point of use, the maintainers are only making one or two trips a day for a specialty tool that is not typically utilized.

Signing tools out at a window all day proved time consuming, and before this renovation, the flight would be out three personnel in a 24 hour period due to manning the sign out window. Moving highly used items onto the respective work floors has saved them massive amounts of time.

The armament flight used to be broken up into three units, one supporting the 357th Fighter Squadron, one supporting the 358th FS, and one, the 354th FS. Now their focus is on just their respective sections: alternate mission equipment, support, phase elements, and the gun shop.

"We don't have to stop production if a gun comes in anymore because it's top priority," said Tech. Sgt. Travis Main, AME flight chief. "That means we will have less equipment get backed up."

The gun shop has experienced a 70 percent increase. Before the change, they were behind, but have caught up. The only guns left un-repaired are waiting for parts to come in.

Another thing the armament flight has improved through their self-help program is revamping the Defense Reutilization Marketing Service program. Rather than throwing all worn and torn equipment into a big box, they have labeled plastic bins. They put the equipment in a bag, label it, put it in the bin and load it into a computer database. This new method has reduced DRMS time by 50 percent.

"Since the AFSO21 inspection, tracking and flow of equipment has been consistently more organized," said Tech. Sgt. Diana Tucker, the support section non-commissioned officer in charge.

According to Sergeant Guillermo, within two weeks of AFSO21, the flight was back on track. They have been making minor changes such as re-painting and stenciling DER's that come in and changing the connectors.

"We are doing whatever we can do to tone down pilot report discrepancies, if there is any doubt that something is wrong, we change it out on the annual inspection, said Sergeant Main. "We make sure to fix the little things that might turn into big things down the road because we know it will all pay off in the end."

The armament flight is responsible for roughly 1,900 pieces of scheduled A-10 and EC-130 equipment, 140 per month. The flight, which used to have full operations on days and swing shifts, and minimal operations on mids, now has full operation 24 hours a day.

"We can turn around scheduled equipment a lot faster, which leaves time for malfunctioning equipment," said Sergeant Guillermo. "The improvements we've made have really allowed us to go above and beyond in inspections."