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NEWS | Dec. 13, 2019

Aircrew Flight Equipment: Putting the AFE in SAFE

By Airman 1st Class Zoie Cox 633d Air Base Wing Public Affairs

The hum of lights and subtle creaking of sewing machine pedals fill the air of an otherwise silent room. Technicians, concentrated on expertly constructing each component of a parachute, apply their unique skill set and range of knowledge to ensure perfection with every stitch.

With each precise measurement and stitch of thread, U.S. Air Force Airmen at the 1st Operations Support Squadron aircrew flight equipment main shop work meticulously to fabricate and repair the life-saving equipment pilots use on a daily basis. Their motto, “Your life is our business,” reminds the Airmen of the significance of their job and what is at stake if even a single aspect is overlooked or neglected. 

“AFE is the last chance for someone to survive after an ejection,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Blake Hendricks, 1st OSS AFE technician. “We need to ensure that after a pilot ejects, their parachute will deploy and they will get back to their family safely.”

The AFE main shop focuses on the inspection, repacking and repair of every parachute and survival kit on base. They are currently undertaking the daunting task of building approximately 20 brand new BA-22 parachutes for the T-38 Talon aircraft.

“When building the new BA-22 for the T-38, I take a new bare pack and add certain components to configure the parachute to Langley’s standards,” Hendricks said. “We will continue to build these chutes until we have enough for each T-38 pilot to have his or her own individual chute.”

AFE technicians strictly follow Air Force Technical Orders which give detailed step-by-step directions on how to fabricate or repair the equipment they work on. The Airmen in AFE are experts on the nomenclature of the parachute which plays a critical role in understanding the T.O. and knowing how to correctly pack the parachute itself.

“Using T.O.s in our job is absolutely critical,” said Staff Sgt. Patrick Long, 1st OSS AFE noncommissioned officer in-charge. “The parachutes and survival kits we work on must work every time, as designed. With that being said, we use our technical orders for each and every step to ensure that everything is being done correctly. Something as simple as grabbing the wrong thread for a tacking could cause the parachute to malfunction, which would lead to the death of a pilot.”

According to Long, building the parachutes in-house helps save the Air Force a significant amount of money. While a contractor off base could be used to build them up, the cost to do so would be substantial. Additionally, because their technical order mandates it, parachute rework, repairs and modifications can only be performed by a certified AFE technician and would still have to be inspected and repaired to ensure they’re built as designed.

Building up a brand new BA-22 parachute for use on a T-38 takes about two days, as the process includes building a new pack, the outer container, adding a set of risers, universal water activation release systems, a parachute canopy and the pilot parachute. Once all of the required items have been installed and assembled, a technician will then inspect the assembly and pack it.

“If we don’t pack chutes, no aircraft on the flight line at Langley would fly,” Hendricks said. “This also pertains to any mission down range or any base across the Air Force.”

Thanks to AFE’s key role in the mission and thorough work on a daily basis, pilots at Joint Base Langley-Eustis can fly with confidence as they deliver combat airpower across the globe.