445th Airlift Wing hosts contingency ISO inspections

  • Published
  • By Stacy Vaughn
  • 445th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  The 445th Maintenance Group began conducting the mandatory isochronal inspections in order to keep the C-5 Galaxy out of the hangar and mission ready November 2009. The unit volunteered to conduct three contingency ISO inspections with a possibility of five.

ISO inspections are thorough examinations of the entire aircraft. During these inspections, aircraft maintainers look for and repair problems in every system, from nose to tail and wingtip to wingtip. ISO inspections on average are a 35-day process.

Dover Air Force Base, Del., was selected as the active duty C-5 ISO site because of facilities, maintenance support, base support, manpower requirements and other supporting data, in 2006. Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass., became the new center for in-depth maintenance on all Air Force Reserve C-5s Dec. 13, 2006. In early 2009, the 167th Airlift Wing, West Virginia Air National Guard, was designated as a C-5 ISO inspection site. The Air Force consolidated eight C-5 ISO facilities into three in order to increase aircraft availability while cutting support costs.

Senior Master Sgt. Raymond Grass, 445th Maintenance Squadron, is part of the wing's ISO team and said this is not a permanent situation for the wing, just a temporary fix.

"The contingency ISOs we are doing is not as in depth as a regionalized ISO, such as those conducted at Westover and Dover. These are abbreviated ISOs so we can do it with less people. Westover and Dover are set up to take on the more major inspections than we can because they have the manpower and the right kind of equipment. For example, we don't have the maintenance stands like the ISO set up they have so access up to the tail with the equipment has been a limiting factor," Sergeant Grass said.

Sergeant Grass said that even though they are not conducting the more in-depth inspections, it's still a big project that relieves some pressure put on Dover and Westover.

"Westover and Dover stood up; now Martinsburg is standing up as a regionalized ISO. All the other C-5 bases are supposed to send their airplanes to them. However, with the change to the new MXG-3 Inspection schedule, Wright-Patt volunteered to facilitate the transition by doing some of the ISOs for fiscal year 2010. Col. (Anna) Schulte (445th Maintenance Group commander) stepped up to have us do three of these contingency ISOs, with the possibility of five, to support the C-5 MSG-3 transition and the C-5 Enterprise," Sergeant Grass said.

The first C-5 the wing conducted an ISO inspection on belonged to the wing. Two C-5s coming from the 164th Airlift Wing, Tennessee Air National Guard, Memphis, Tenn., are next. The final two have not been confirmed yet but are possibilities.

"While conducting our first ISO inspection, we found some things that needed to be repaired as we were going along. That's part of what this is all about--finding these things before something happens to the airplane," Sergeant Grass said.

Sergeant Grass said unlike Dover and Westover, nobody was designated to be part of the ISO team; it was all volunteers. "We didn't create a new ISO work center. It's basically a hodge-podge of people from different shops; aerospace repair shop; communication/navigation; hydraulics; crew chiefs; etc.," Sergeant Grass said.

Master Sgt. Steve Rhodes, 445th Maintenance Squadron, aerospace repair shop, said they basically had to build the program from the ground up; in a manner in about a month and a half.
"We had to completely rewrite the ISO package that Dover had sent us in order to conform with our local quality assurance. We even had to establish a tool room," he said.

Sergeant Rhodes added that the experience has been rewarding to the traditional reservists working the ISOs. "As a traditional reservist, a majority of the time, we don't get the chance to actually work on the aircraft as much as we want to. A lot of times you come in and you end up doing a lot of ancillary training. Being part of the ISO team has been not only a challenge but it's also been a great benefit for training where we've actually got people more involved and getting a lot of hands on experience," Sergeant Rhodes said.

"We have a fantastic crew everybody has a fantastic attitude. They've got that drive to get things done and I think because of that, we're a little ahead of schedule," Sergeant Rhodes said.