With a career that spans across three decades and a warfighting reputation that rivals nearly every aircraft inside the Air Force’s arsenal, the B-1 Bomber has established itself as probably the most United States’ most important assets to maintaining air and ground superiority.
This achievement was built at the backs of hundreds, if not thousands, of Dyess maintainers who’ve kept this Cold War bird fighting well into the 21st century.
With the bomber’s ever increasing role in today’s combat operations, pushing the airframe to the boundaries of its original design, skilled maintenance professionals are crucial to making sure mission success.
Located within considered one of Dyess’ most prominent landmarks the “Global Power for America” hangar is the 7th Equipment Maintenance Squadron’s maintenance flight – a collection of approximately 40 maintainers who strip this aircraft right down to its frame only to examine it, repair it and put it back together.
“Most B-1 aircraft are around 26 years old and require loads of maintenance to maintain mission ready,” said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Mueller, 7th EMS maintenance flight chief. “The isochronal inspection, better referred to as ISO, is a crucial a part of this effort. With a keen eye and dedication to duty these inspections make the daily maintenance easier. The hassle is set finding and replacing the parts that failed, or are about to fail, before they cause mission delays.”
Each year, this dedicated flight of Airmen inspect greater than a dozen B-1s in and out, manually removing approximately 215 panels simply to begin the method. That is the start of a tedious and painstakingly complex list of tasks that ensure this heavily-employed bomber continues to produce constant overwatch for troops at the ground.
“ISO has a particular flow of the way the upkeep is accomplished to ensure everything gets completed on time,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew Johnson, 7th EMS. “Day one is our de-panel day and quite often if the jet is playing nice, we are able to de-panel 90 percent of the aircraft in exactly in the future.”
From there, thousands of things are inspected for any discrepancies the aircraft may need and are repaired or replaced. The standard assurance shop then performs a follow-up inspection to make sure any repairs made to the aircraft were done correctly.
Once again, the tedious technique of re-paneling the aircraft occurs, manually reinstalling each individual screw by hand.
“We then apply hydro-power and preform an operational take a look at of the components which have been disconnected or replaced,” Johnson said. “QA performs one last follow-up inspection and run the engines to finish the remainder of our operational check outs.”
The 7th EMS maintenance flight is allotted 15 to 18 duty days to finish this whole process, a objective that isn’t friendly to the non-public lives of those Airmen.
“For us, the obligation day doesn’t end until the job is done. If we get behind for some reason or we discover something that requires labor intensive disassembly we are going to work all the way through the weekend to confirm everything is finished correctly,” Mueller said. “Our main objective is to maintain the aircrew safe, keep the aircraft within the air and make sure freedom for everybody,” he added. “One mistake on our part and we jeopardize that objective.”
Furthermore, unlike many Airmen who move from station to station every few years, Dyess maintainers rarely leave the B-1 platform, some spending their entire Air Force careers mastering every inch of the super-sonic bomber.
“This is a blue-collar, down-in-the-weeds type mission we have here,” Mueller said. “The job we do isn’t glamorous nor is it within the spotlight, but i couldn’t be prouder of the lads and girls of the 7th EMS maintenance flight and their contribution to the liberty of the us.”