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A-10 maintainers continue to work after competition ends

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Bill Huntington
  • 442nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SALINA, Kan. --  Even though there was no flying on the last day of Hawgsmoke 2008, the flight line at Salina Airport was still the scene of activity as maintainers serviced aircraft in preparation for their return home.

While the pilots waited for the results the Air Force's biennial A-10 Thunderbolt II bombing and tactical gunnery competition, the maintainers turned to the tasks of any needed repair, aircraft return configuration and, in the hangar, packing equipment and cleaning up. Fortunately, because of daily maintenance and extensive pre-planning, repair needs were minimal.

Although a pilot's name is on the jet, an old flight line adage holds that the plane really belongs to its crew chief, the person who keeps it in operating condition in a "labor of love."

"I've loved it [here]," said Senior Airman Gentry Cline, a 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief. "I've been really busy here and that's the way I like to do business."

Hawgsmoke 2008 marked the first time that all three models of the A-10 occupied a flight line together. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command A-10A, A-10A+ and A-10C qualified maintainers from Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; Willow Grove Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Pa.; Whiteman AFB, Mo.; Boise, Idaho; Fort Smith, Ark.; and Battle Creek, Mich., joined forces to keep the jets flying.

"This is the first time I've gotten to see this many jets [from different units] all lined up," Airman Cline said. "I got to work with the other units and see how they did things. It was a little bit different but at the same time it was effective."

For the maintainers, the road to Hawgsmoke 2008 was fraught with obstacles. All A-10 units took note two weeks before the competition when the Air Force announced a time-compliance technical order requiring immediate inspection and repair of wing cracks on about 130 A-10s throughout the Air Force.

In addition to the TCTO announcement, other obstacles for the Whiteman Airmen ranged from an Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom deployment from May to July of this year to a home station phase-one operational readiness exercise in early October.

Since a phase-one ORE tests a unit's ability to deploy troops and equipment, Chief Master Sgt. Rick Harter and his people used it as an opportunity to get their equipment to Salina.

"We decided that with the exercise, we'd coordinate that what we were taking to Salina would be used for the cargo processing for the ORE," said Chief Harter, NCO in charge of Hawgsmoke 2008 maintenance and 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron production superintendent.

Instead of cargo palettes being marshaled on the Whiteman flight line in a row on the ramp simulating a cargo aircraft, the cargo was loaded on to a C-5A Galaxy aircraft and flown to Salina. Two requirements were met as a result.  (Air Force Reserve Command News Service)