Deployed Liberty Airman tracks maintenance trends

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman David Carbajal
  • 451st Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Today's Airmen analyze and process information like never before, but a few 451st Expeditionary Maintenance Group Airmen do it a little bit differently than most.

Members of the 451st Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron use detailed records to monitor maintenance trends for the eight Air Force airframes at Kandahar Airfield.

"We provide commanders maintenance performance indicators to give them a better understanding of the health of our fleet," said Master Sgt. Charles Eckert, wing analyst.

"These indicators are a result of an intensive data review, or analysis, where we validate the quality of the data and use standardized formulas to draw conclusions from the data."

The analysts work hand in hand with units' officers in charge and production superintendents to get accurate maintenance data for Kandahar's aircraft.

"Once we pull this information from the two maintenance information systems, we compile it and analyze it for commanders," said Eckert, who is deployed from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, and is a St. Louis, Mo., native.

The flight's analysts track each weapons system's maintenance records to formulate 24-month trend reviews by weapons system, for all maintenance indicators.

"Since most aircraft are only deployed for a few months, we have to coordinate with home station units to ensure maintenance data is documented by aircraft maintainers and retrievable for our use so we can distribute the performance indicators for leadership decision-making capabilities at all levels," said Eckert.

The flight provides stats on leading and lagging maintenance indicators, such as mission capable rates, aircraft abort rates, sorties and flight hours.

The flight also tracks maintenance for aircraft at three other locations: Camp Bastion, Jalalabad and Forward-Operating Base Shindand, said Eckert.

"We view their trends just like we do our units here," said Eckert.

The maintenance analysis office also complete daily data entry review for integrity.

"We ensure that maintenance matches the actions that are taken on the aircraft. Data integrity is very important because it aides end item managers in decision-making capabilities on aircraft performance, no matter how long they've been part of the Air Force inventory."

The flight can also be tasked to perform analytical studies of maintenance trends.

"We aided an MQ-1 engine study which correlated engine malfunctions and local temperatures," he said. We found that the temperature drove the high fail engine sensor system discrepancies and recommended this become a time change item."

Having these deployed analyzing specialists located at Kandahar is a capability that some bases do not have.

"All deployed locations do not have analysts like we do here," Eckert added. About 600 Airmen make up the Air Force's maintenance analysis career field, 2R0X1; three of them are currently deployed here.

"The data they provide allows us to track maintenance trends, high failure items, and other critical information for the leadership to plan and direct maintenance priorities," said Capt. Cleve Rodriguez, 451st EMXS operations officer. "This ultimately leads to more aircraft in the fight either moving people and cargo or, in our case, providing close air support for the troops on the ground.

"In the end, we provide critical information to decisions makers and we help the maintainers quickly identify problems and help find resolutions for them," said Eckert.