ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Robins'
strategic airlift directorate workers are supporting a massive, joint
service, multi-national operation to deploy and redeploy nearly a
quarter-million U.S. troops and more than 1 million tons of equipment.
The surge for strategic airlift including people and
parts, heralded as the largest equipment and troop movement since World
War II, is expected to be completed later this month.
Al Fatkin, strategic airlift and C-5 System Program
Office deputy director here, said their efforts at making sure C-5
aircraft are ready for duty are going well. Proactive from the start,
directorate experts took a number of actions to support the surge
including a plan for organizing a Strategic Airlift Control Center.
The SACC was to serve as the nerve center of this
surge operation, providing a parts action team to quickly react to Air
Mobility Command needs 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.
Mr. Fatkin said, after further contact with AMC, it
was decided that rather than standing up the 24-hour-a-day operation, they
would instead provide the more needed expedited weekend support requested.
"We did give them a 24 hour-a-day point of
contact, but it really hasn't been used as much as we would have
thought," he said.
The deputy director said as far as surging, the
directorate was in this mode even before the request came from AMC, and is
continuing to do so while making sure no other opportunities are missed.
"When you start a surge there are two
choices," he said. "One of those is you can stop all
non-essential maintenance to meet the request as we did during Desert
Storm. When you make that choice, what happens after you finish the surge
is you end up with a lot of extra maintenance you have to do to catch
up."
The second approach, and the he said was chosen, is
to maintain its regular workload, while maximizing aircraft availability
so there is no backlog at the end.
"We've tried to maintain program depot
maintenance inputs and regular maintenance schedules in the field and
still maximize aircraft availability by improved parts support and focus
on priority airplanes," he said.
The proof this equation works is in the pudding, and
Mr. Fatkin said five aircraft placed in short-term status earlier this
year being returned to their home stations shows that.
More evidence is in the favorable remarks from end
users such as experts at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., who recently
reported no mission incapable supply rates on any of their aircraft for a
24-hour period.
Words like those are encouraging, and Mr. Fatkin
said it's the work force that makes them possible.
"We are really focusing on trying to improve
the supply chain," he said. "We are trying to manage the
aircraft tail number by tail number, and the work force keeps plugging
away."