Reservists, active-duty personnel
at Kadena depend on each other
By Carlos Bongioanni,
Okinawa bureau
Carlos Bongioanni /
Stars and Stripes
Air Force Reserve Staff Sgt. Michael Tufts checks a manual to find out how to properly
replace a broken piece of avionics equipment on a KC-135 that has not been upgraded with
the new Pacer CRAG system. |
KADENA AIR BASE — Michael Tufts usually sits behind a desk in an
air-conditioned room counting money for the California State Treasurer’s Office in
Sacramento.
That’s his regular job.
Earlier this month, the Air Force Reserve staff sergeant toiled on
KC-135 Stratotanker air refueling aircraft on Kadena’s sweltering flight line.
He was fulfilling his annual two-week military reservist duty. And it
was a “huge help,” said his active-duty maintenance counterparts at Kadena.
Tufts and 20 other reservists from the 940th Air Refueling Squadron
out of Beale Air Force Base, Calif., couldn’t have come at a better time, officials
said.
“We’ve been short-handed for a little while.… Their
help was perfect timing,” said Maj. David Haar, the maintenance officer for
Kadena’s 909th Refueling Squadron.
Haar wouldn’t give exact numbers, but said his manning numbers
were “very low.” Some maintainers were supporting missions around the Pacific
theater. Others made the trek to Turkey, where F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft and about 250
Kadena personnel deployed to support Operation Northern Watch in early June.
Tankers from the 909th and some of Haar’s maintainers supported
the trip to Turkey, taking a circuitous route from Kadena to the States and across Europe.
“The handwriting was on the wall last year,” said Chief
Master Sgt. Thomas Rodello, the 909th’s maintenance chief.
Higgins |
“We knew we had a lot of folks getting orders for the summer
rotation period, but it didn’t seem like we were seeing many inbounds. You always
hope they (the Air Force Personnel Center) will send in replacements on time,” but
you never know if it will happen, Rodello said. “The reservists were a huge help just
being here.”
Reservists show up for their annual two-week reserve duty every year,
Rodello said, but this was the first time he recognized how important they are to the
overall Air Force mission.
“This time around the whole ‘total force’ idea really
struck us in the face,” Rodello said.
The total-force, active-reserve concept has a “twofold
benefit,” said Senior Master Sgt. Billy Higgins, the maintenance chief for the 940th
reserve unit. “They get the support they need. We get the training we need.”
While at Kadena, the reservists got hands-on training on equipment
that soon will be added to their own aircraft at Beale. In December the 940th’s fleet
of nine KC-135 tankers will start receiving major upgrades to their navigational and
avionics equipment with the addition of the Pacer CRAG system (Compass, Radar and Global
Positioning System).
The Pacer CRAG equipment sits in the center of the cockpit’s
control panel and replaces the navigator, who used to assist the pilot and co-pilot in
flying the aircraft. The new cockpit configuration, which also includes a new traffic
collision avoidance system and a ground proximity warning system, enhances the safety of
the aircraft, officials say.
Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration mandated that all
military aircraft are to have the upgrades. The cockpit overhauls have been completed in
all KC-135 tankers in active-duty refueling squadrons. The Air Force is trying to
modernize all its tankers in its reserve squadrons.
“We have people getting ready to go off to school to learn about
the Pacer CRAG, but this allows them to learn outside of the books,” Higgins said.
At Kadena, Tufts learned about small quirks that can cause problems
with the Pacer CRAG. “With this knowledge, we won’t be chasing ghosts,” he
said. “Nobody in our unit has this background knowledge. This will save us hours,
maybe days, of work, once we start getting the upgrades done to our aircraft.”
As Tufts and the rest of his crew ended their mission Tuesday, he
replaced a piece of avionics equipment that broke on a KC-135 that had just landed to
ferry the reservists home. The KC-135 was from Beale’s 940th Air Refueling Squadron
and did not have all the upgraded equipment that Tufts had been learning about while at
Kadena.
“Everything I usually work on,” he said pointing to a rack
of avionics equipment, “will be replaced later. It’s funny. You learn about this
stuff here, but then they switch you over to something completely different … But the
modifications will make this a better, safer plane.”
Tufts said when he returns to his regular job this week, he’ll
face colleagues who think it’s strange that he has a second life as a reservist.
“It’s so different from what I do working with money in
finance, my co-workers think it’s funny. But to come out here and work in the heat on
airplanes … well, it’s a lot of fun.”
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