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Show dip Jig. March 29, 2001 Airmen train to repair aircraft behind the front lines who work under the assessor, who works under the team chief. The team chief o ersees eer thing - but the assessor will be looked to for answers if anwhing goes wrong after a repaired plane flies away. Assessors are trained and certified to be responsible for figuring out exactly what hit where, how bad the damage is. and the materials and time it will take to get the plane in the air again. Sometimes a hole is too big for a CLSS team to patch, and an engineer is brought in; sometimes the damage is too severe to warrant repairing - the assessor makes the call. The technicians repair the damage to his specifications, and the pilot flies away only after the assessor tells him exactly what his crippled aircraft is still capable of doing. binder and flips Sergeant Peery opens a three-inc- h 1 6 to the pages the of of every part past diagrams This on. behemoth is he's area the working detailing best friend. assessor's the the order technical A battlefield version of an instruction manual, an aircraft's T.O. tells the assessor exactly how much or little the functioning of any part of the aircraft is necessary In many cases, parts that to keep it mission-worthdon't show up in the book don't have to be fixed at all. "We don't want to do unnecessary work," Sergeant Range said. "The idea is to get the plane out of there, if that's sending it back to do more sorties or getting it over to another base where it'll be repaired or get used for parts." Another general aircraft T.O. also guides repairs. The books are helpful to every technician, but especially to a structural repair technician trained to work with sheet metal who's tasked to fix. say, electrical wiring. Each technician is specialized w ith structural, electrical, fuel, hydraulic or aircraft general repair expertise, and each ABDR team is made up of some of each, so it can tackle F-- F-1- 6s y. Photos by Airman First Class Lara Gale technical order for additional information before advising Staff Master Sgt. Mark Peery consults the on next of Perretta Andrew the Sgt. phase repairs. The book breaks the aircraft into zones, so technicians can find information about specific aircraft parts quickly. F-- 16 by Airman First Class Lara Gale 4 19th FW Public Affairs Office damage is a monster. A bullet has penetrated 9 - an area on the 6 that includes the cell, which has, along with the two main fuel lines, been punctured. The fuels technician can start repairing that right aw ay. And someone can start working on the patch for the hole. But the flight control w ires are damaged too, which means it's going to take a good three or four hours just to figure out w hat needs fixing - and w ho knows how long before it's fixed. This is day nine of the 419th Combat Logistics k Aircraft Battle Damage Support Squadron's n Air Force Base, Ariz., exercise. Repair is the simulated battlefield for the exercise, which began March 3. Master Sgt. Mark Peery looks up from his crouched shielding his position on the right w ing of the from sun. the afternoon eyes "They gave us another scenario," he say s. Arizona in March is like Utah in May, and at 2 p.m.. Sergeant Peery and his team have been outside working with a sense of urgency for more than six hours. Plenty of simulated battle damage is left to repair, but as soon as this hole is assessed, they'll call it a day. The 6 they're working on will never fly again. After six years as a dedicated ABDR training plane, parts of it have been blown up and repaired so many times it's a mess of steel patches and bolts and undressed d wounds. But in a conflict, each scenario The F-1- two-wee- Davis-Montha- F-1- 6. F-1- real-worl- could mean the difference between salvaging or losing aircraft - and ultimately a war. Most of the more than 200 members of CLSS have never been on a battle field, but ABDR is their primary mission, and this exercise is meant to train them for it. "It's about as real as it gets," said Staff Sgt Sam Reese, an aircraft general repair technician. "We have fun, but it's in a very serious vein." At home, CLSS technicians train mostly by resurrecting planes from the boneyard for the Hill Aerospace Museum or for the United States to sell to friendly foreign nations. ABDR is another story. With the luxuries of time, unlimited supplies and a sane work environment stripped away, CLSS technicians on the front lines have to be able to think on their feet, move quickly and efficiently and improvise to get the plane back in the air as soon as possible. Sergeant Peery fingers the frayed end of the bundle of llight control wires in the hole in front of him. Tech. Sgt. Clark Range, an evaluator for the exercise, watches from a platform near . i m " ,ys w the left wing. Squinting under the shadow of his black baseball cap, his face is inscrutable, but close up it's not hard to see he s smiling. "Which branch is damaged?" he asks. Sergeant Peery doesn't know yet. He also doesn't know he's being given a hint. Sergeant Range and the other exercise evalu-ator- s arrived a few days before the group to set ;,':-- ' '.. exercise. Every year, the exercise includes the up one week working with active duty on peacetime 2Lt. Michael Anderson, an engineer with the 649th CLSS, repairs and a wjeek of hands-o- n ABDR training, - a panel that which changes from year to year. Evaluators add contemplates a hole in the "bathtub" A simple normally protects the underbelly of the more realistic scenarios to test the technicians' a in on area steel hole size this this wouldn't be patch ability to survive and operate in a chemical warit to to so he safe his he's fly, said, keep using fare environment. The evaluators also design enough a more complicated repair. to skills engineering design every damage scenario, so they know exactly what will be needed to fix them. Team leaders are given the information in advance, any type of damage. said Master Sgt. Curtis Cottrell, an evaluator. "But if a sniper takes out an electrician, you can't "We know what we want to see, and they know say, 'Oh, I guess we can't do the repair," said Sergeant what we expect from them." he said. Cottrell. Evaluators are technically there to give each team a The first battle damage repairmen were crew chiefs score based on its performance on everything from the improvising to get damaged planes back in the air durrepairs themselves to staying on task. But the exering World War II. A lot has changed since then. Those cise is meant to be a learning experience, and evaluaearly crew chiefs' notes about what works and what tors often stop the scenario to talk about mistakes or doesn't have evolved into the ABDR techniques today's offer direction. specialists are trained in. The combat-vetera- n scene has diminished by nearly Sergeant Range has been in Sergeant Peery's place as an assessor, and he's itching for his friend to figure 50 percent, said Sergeant Peery. Forty percent of the out the short cut to repairing the flight control wires. 419th CLSS is made up of first-terairmen. But the Planes are built so things can go wrong, and they'll experienced w ho remain are eager to share their knowlstill fly. The 6 has redundant flight control wiring edge. - four different branches of wire do "It's important to teach this," Sergeant Peery said. basically the same thing, and only one is absolutely necessary. If that "We have to know our jobs. If there's a war and someone isn't damaged, the electrical repairs needed will be thing doesn't work, people are going to get hurt unnecminor. essarily." "That's why I told him to make sure he checks which "We'll probably never have to do most of this stuff," branch is damaged," Sergeant Range says. said Tech. Sgt. Chris Ringle, a sheet metal specialist. But he understands. Sergeant Peery's an assessor; he "But we train just in case there's a situation w here they'd must be cautious. have to put you in this environment. We don't know if Every team is made up of specialized technicians, it's going to happen, but w e have to be ready if it does." F-1- j P. & lTw'flH. a -- Wi o m F-1- tinifniMm Senior Master Sgt. Dale Hoskins watches Tech. Sgt. Robert Nicholson unscrew a panel to uncover a new exercise scenario. If it's not repaired before the team leaves, next year's wave of trainees will finish it up. 6. |