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Grand Forks Airmen pitch perfect game ... twice

  • Published
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  - In baseball, a pitchers dream is to pitch a complete game and face only 27 batters. This is referred to as a perfect game. In the history of baseball, only 17 pitchers have achieved this feat.

The aircraft maintenance communitys version of the perfect game is the black letter initial launch, which occurs when an aircraft takes off without any open write-ups or delayed discrepancies. Delayed discrepancies are entries in the aircraft maintenance forms that document minor flyable discrepancies that require either aircraft down time or supply support to resolve.

By those standards, the 319th Maintenance Group pitched a perfect game twice Aug. 12 when crew chiefs Staff Sgt. Brian Morris and Staff Sgt. Justin Carwile launched 42- and 46-year old aircraft under black letter initials. To top off the accomplishment, both aircraft landed without a discrepancy.

I saw this happen four times at my last base, but they were nearly brand new jets, said Col. Mark Ramsay, 319th Air Refueling Wing commander. This is a huge accomplishment.

According to Lt. Col. Mike England, 319th Maintenance Group deputy commander, the accomplishment was a result of the combined efforts of the entire Maintenance Group and the supply system as a whole.

From our maintenance squadrons efficient execution of scheduled maintenance to our aircraft maintenance squadrons management of our command leading delayed discrepancy program and the outstanding supply support from the 319th Logistics Readiness Squadron, this accomplishment was a total team effort. said Colonel England.

The most difficult part of the black letter initial launch is to manage the delayed discrepancies, said Chief Master Sgt. David Brungardt, chief enlisted manager for the 319th Maintenance Group.

With approximately one-half of our aircraft fleet deployed or off-station at any given time, managing the delayed discrepancy program requires a great deal of coordination and planning. The 319th Maintenance Group currently leads all other Air Mobility Command tanker wings in efficiently managing the total number of delayed discrepancies on its fleet of 51 KC-135s, said Chief Brungardt.

The fact that Col. Lee DeRemer, 319th Operations Group commander, was the pilot of one of the aircraft made the accomplishment more notable for the maintenance group.

Its been two years since weve launched an aircraft under a black letter initial and to have it happen twice in the same day is phenomenal, said Col. Michael Saville, 319th MXG commander. In true Warrior of the North spirit, the dedicated men and women of the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron readily accept any challenge. Were proud of these black letter initial launches and look forward to repeating the perfect game many times in the coming months.