TRAVIS FIELD, Ga. –
TRAVIS FIELD, Ga. – When a rudder on an F-15 breaks, you can’t just drive down to the local hardware store and buy a replacement.
That is something the eight-person Detachment 71 supply shop knew going into the two month deployment to Savannah, Ga., and they already had a plan in place.
“When you pull parts, home station automatically replaces them,” said Tech. Sgt. John Payne, Det. 71 Logistics Readiness Squadron NCOIC of Supply. “We have trucks that we meet half-way.”
The plan is simple. Trucks with parts from Langley drive south to the North Carolina/South Carolina border where they meet with a truck from Travis Field containing parts that have to go back to storage at Langley. The drivers swap trucks and drive back.
“We go with the driver and make sure everything is in the truck,” said Staff Sgt. Lamar Dixon, Det. 71 Supply. “It was supposed to be twice a week, but with so many parts, it went up to three times a week.”
High sortie rates at Det. 71 is the cause of the increase in supply shipments, Sergeant Payne said.
“They’re flying a lot, so they’re breaking a lot,” he said. “The tempo is very high they way they’re flying. Yesterday, we pulled 15 to 16 parts out of our deployed kits for the breaks.”
Mission support kits contain all the parts and supplies a unit might need on deployment, but with the high operations tempo, supply finds themselves going through parts fast.
Sergeant Payne said his troops are meeting the challenge head on.
“Not only do they work long hours, but they have to drive out to meeting point at the border,” he said. “Our guys are awesome.”