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Show By Larry Evans Not long ago the need for a certain number of oil seals for airplane propellers threatened to ground every last jack plane t. at the Pocatello Seriously menaced was the training program utilizing tactical airplanes real live fighting ships to cram the heads of Uncle Sam's flying nephews full of air combat know-hoNo planes no training. Therefore, no pilots. The commanding officer at Pocatello snatched up a phone and called AGP at Hill Field. "Gotta have blank number of oil seals right now, right away," said Pocatello. "You'll get 'em," Hill Field answered.. Then the ball was snapped back to OASC's AGP branch and things began to happen. First thing checked was stock in Hill Field's supply warehouses. But there were no oil seals at that particular monent. Undaunted, AGP parts experts continued the search, systematically, doggedly. They called several Air Service Command area commands San Atonio, Spokane, San. Bernardino, Sacramento. Suddenly, the AGP expert on the Sacramento phone sank back in his chair, relieved. Sacramento had them. All they had to do now was get them to Pocatello with the accent - on speed and plenty of it. Sacramento promised to have the parts flown here via Air Transport sub-depo- - w. . Command plane; When the big ship loaded with oil seals settled down at Hill Field it was swiftly emptied of the vital parts in turn hurriedly stuffed into one of AGP's own OASC area "milk run" planes. The. AGP pilot' revved up the engines, Then readied the ship for the take-ofcame the bad news, told evenly, dispassionately, as only a Hill Field control tower operator can tell it. Hill Field, closed. Bad weather. Ceiling zero. only for a moment, AGP summoned a truck, a truck-drive- r, reloaded the oil seats into it, bid them godspeed, then turned to other pressing tasks. The oil seals meanwhile, arrived in Pocatello only 27 hours after the original request f. Non-pluss- ed was-receive- d. AGP is short for Airplanes Grounded for Part Branch. Headed by debonair Capt. Martin H. Imholt, HiU Field's AGP has one purpose in life which it pursues with all the relentless determination of a Canadian Mountie. That purpose is to cut to zero the number of airplanes grounded for lack of parts in the OASC area. Each of the 12 ASC area commands throughout the U. S. has its own AGP branch. They're rated on the semi-week- . cally every airplane part store at by sight. one of the various classes can find out in less time than it takes to tell, the status of in the area. any particular plane grounded menu a board, . For visual reference, huge 32 feet long and eight feet high, was built a few months ago. The grounded plane in the area status at any can be found at a glance despite its apparent complexity. It has been admired and studied by scores of visitors from other ASC installations; also by Senator Truman, Governor Maw; General Arnold and General sub-installati- Frank. - aj Twill nlf l 4Via nxraroll- nA are; vapt. rnoger C. Cono. a. .OI L.. WW 0-- nm Pacific tions eriven , ... to his. . unitor m the South or source a auesuon wnen it's proceaure j mrner ineyre or sometnine. it usuauv oct. 'm looking for. On "hot" reauests. supply s chief, Col .' - .t-- mm 1 nam smeias. Keep tnemseives posiea on 30-da- latest developments. After mj sub-statio- n, u r a A short time aeo on all. AGP. to other r iw 2 vision. niiiiiii irr v ei no less a man than insr ereneral of the Air Service Command, nhoned here ana said a detective part was threatening to ground an unprecedented number of planes throughout the ASC. Ebcnediters called every conceivable snume of new" rarts. Finallvf thevr were lo-- stocks up! Technical researchers in the branch test the authenticity of parts requests. For instance, when someone teletypes in for five superchargers to get a certain plane in the air again, they know that plane only carries ML cated at Ford's gigantic Willow Run plant AiitTinritv' was erranted bv ASC to eet the and thev were delivered in 69 hours naia the was received. request after . original J.1 XI....... V. .m. i - . . .n. I. uumw L.1 . . ing as little as three cents, can ground' $300,000 bomber. Sgt. Turner said. four superchargers. They must be positive the person on the other end of the teletype knows what he wants. . . They've got dozens of fat, black books jammed with accurate sketches of the many thousands of different airplane parts, plus part number, nomenclature and class. You can't, fool them. There was a time when almost 25 per cent of the requests received here were not known. Then, there were many occasions when, after the. part was received, it was found to be the wrong one. Like asking for a windshield wiper and getting an exhaust pipe. No exhaust pipes go out for windshield wipers these days. 0-- 2 and 0-- 3 Expediters in the O-- l, classes are super supply sleuths. If they can't find it, you can be pretty sure it doesn't , live there any more. If the warehouse here says: "No have got," the expediter says: "I'm from Missouri." Then he blitzes down to the warehouse and starts rummaging. Maybe the part, is there but no record of it (although supply would deny this, and maybe they're right!) Each expediter knows every part in his class by sight as well as number. - A - L nnr .a nr ninr viii mmrm Tavlor. . visor and the expediter concerned r T hound the phones until they can fill them, or are convinced that Orson Welles iust flew the last hundred to Mars. n uu u r rna "mii&r iti a nil a it7 1 m in - L 1 M - iuui b w--t 1 11 1. .J J OVM v uled flieht between Hill Field and several ts not served by the Air Transport Command. Recently, eight former Navy dive bombers were secured for reconversion to cargo-bearin-g ships. witn eacn improvement, AUt is ap- eoal of no airplanes proacnineS. nearer . . . its. " i can erounded tor lack of parts. If anvbodv find these needed parts when time is at premium, AGP can. Knockiner the monkev-wrene- h out of Pocatello's pilot training program is just stuff to AGP experts. They handle that sort of thine everv week. To the stations they serve, it's often a miracle how get those parts out so fast. But then, they we re living in an age of miracles. a 1 bCU. Cb mi A A&G t M. it UU ID C UCU1 T sub-depo- . -- run-of-the-- Typical AGP expert is Ralph "Brick" Woolley who knows practi- red-thatch- in 1 ed ' 4 V ' I "A, f -- air-wort- hy & ' ly percentage of grounded planes in their particular area. Competition is keen. A few months ago AGP here established a new low in the number of such planes. It consistently ranks among the top branches, has often led the entire nation. Organized last October, AGP has lopped off by some 60 per cent the number of grounded for parts ships in the OASC. Most of the tactical airplanes in the area are used for training purposes, part of the biggest and best pilot training program in the world. But for that program to continue running at peak load those planes must be every minute. Scads of basic, advanced trainers are also afand primary fected. Divided into five. departments, AGP is composed, of an administrative unit, a statistical control unit, a technical research unit,. an O-- l class unit, and an 2 and 3 unit. In the same order, supervisors are: Delbert Smith, Geneva Winterrose, Willard G. Owens. Russel Nelson and Vern Strand. There's also a miscellaneous classes unit with supervisor Joseph E. Solomon. All information on grounded planes is assembled for a thumb-nai- l reference ...in the lausuutuf tumroii unit. Anvv exnediter of j A Ponf ministration oi me Drancu F. Temphn, assistant chief ; Lt. lone inv nssiHtanf chief: and civilian Clvde Tt Taylor, chief civilian supervisor. LJC l ill IrT LCLllILLLffU O.U VAOIjI. acs liam H. Turner, veteran of Java and New The system is such that now AGP doesn't wait for an installation to yell: "We're out of parts!" It know how much stock each has of any critical item and when that stock drops below . the y supply level it swings into action to build it up. It may draw from another overstocked at the. moment; it may reach out to other area commands or to specialized depots. On occasion it has even gone to the But in all, the watch-cr- y is: Keep those sub-stati- a a on " aaiaf incrKf A Hill Field "ft:' '"' '-- , - ; '74 0-- J i niS, :r TL" Jrsr " . . IT..".." V.Jr -- " wrV"." ":."'. w in vp. d irnn it. imnoit. AOP ehM. Th "ron" Airplane Nrti to nlni throuchoift A Dove, upu Trmnim Mmetimcs fll wh.n himir ur civiiimn enter, ana 4o Johnston, exoedlt-- Lhm mmkm cM.ni of " r- -. .- - in. Mm'"r ..., "wn snown ni 10m 01 urgenuy-nerde- r. m. the the the points tnrougnoat the country U ecura Omrf. with the famed AO" |