AGE keeps machines in shape

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Nicholas Busch
  • 60th Maintenance Squadron
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  For every hour a plane spends in the air, it spends dozens of hours on the ground being maintained and prepped.

The mission of the Travis Air Force Base, California, Aerospace Ground Equipment flight is to provide the base, mainly the maintenance group, with the equipment it needs to perform its tasks.  Those in the AGE field are responsible for all of the equipment needed as planes receive maintenance and prepare for flight.

A variety of equipment is used to prepare the large and heavy aircraft at Travis to complete their mission. Almost daily, you can hear the hum of diesel-powered generators as they power the electrical systems in aircraft to facilitate a wide variety of aircraft maintenance tasks.

In addition to the ever-common generators, AGE includes general equipment such as jacks for lifting the aircraft off of its landing gear, maintenance platforms give maintainers a boost to the area they are working on, mobile lights for illuminating work areas and diesel-powered air compressors for light metal repairs.

One interesting piece of commonly used AGE is the nitrogen generators. They can produce up to 4,400 pounds per square inch of 96 percent pure nitrogen from thin air. This is used for filling aircraft struts and tires.

Less commonly seen is heavy maintenance equipment such as hydraulic testers that use a diesel-driven hydraulic pump to run the aircraft's hydraulic systems such as landing gear and flight controls. Other heavy equipment, such as heaters, air conditioners and the ever-complex frequency converters that change wall power into power that can be used for aircraft, are used for more long-term maintenance.

The wide variety of equipment in an AGE flight requires a range of skills. A keen and ever-growing knowledge of electronics, refrigeration, hydraulics, power generation, diesel engines, turbine engines, pneumatics, heating and flightline operations is imperative to a good AGE maintainer.

It may sound like a lot, but the AGE shop operates like a miniature maintenance group with subsections to perform its many functions. Starting at the top, there is a production section that monitors all flight operations. Below there are three sections that do different tasks. In the operations section, flight members deliver, recover, fuel and inspect equipment as it is used for tasks on the flightline. This section also triages incoming equipment as it flows into the shops other two sections.

The inspection section handles scheduled maintenance on all 511 pieces of equipment at least every six months. These inspections can vary in duration from a few hours to a few weeks depending on the complexity of the equipment being inspected. This section is where most of the on-the-job training happens as it covers each system and subsystem of every piece of equipment in detail. The maintenance section is where broken equipment is analyzed and repaired. This section not only fixes breaks but analyzes failures to prevent future breaks. This information is communicated to other bases and levels of command for trend analysis and process improvement.

Managing 11,000 tools and 39 programs to facilitate all of this work is the support section. This section contains experienced technicians who understand the operations of the other three sections in order to provide the equipment, facilities and accounting required to carry out a wide range of tasks completed in the flight. These sections all come together to do some great things at Travis. 

As the Air Force continues to reduce its footprint and reduce its budget, AGE is no exception. Where massive fleets of readiness and base support equipment were maintained throughout the world just a few short years ago, a substantial fleet reduction has been a primary initiative of AGE flights around the world. The overall fleet at Travis was reduced approximately 30 percent during the past five years, saving millions of dollars.

Also in the AGE, fuel saving is a major concern. Although AGE is not considered a major user of fuel, about 10,000 gallons per month (one-fifth of one C-5 fuel load), there are other ways AGE can save money using fuel. Fuel that would normally be waste after being drained from aircraft for maintenance can be used in AGE, thereby recycling waste and saving the purchase of new fuel.

Additionally, AGE can be used to simulate some functions of aircraft that would normally require the use of an onboard turbine engine. The AGE saves usage hours on aircraft and uses much less fuel. As fuel savings is a major initiative for Headquarters Air Force, Air Mobility Command and Travis, these items get a lot of attention.

As you can see the AGE flight plays an integral role in the mobility mission at Travis. A wide variety of equipment and experts divided into different subsets is used to support all three jets. Continuous improvement in the form of reduction and recycling will forever play a key role in AGE operations of the future. All of this combined gives you a snapshot into the world of your local AGE flight.