With the Troops: Maintenance Crews Keep Army Helicopters on the Go in Afghanistan

May 11--BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- In a maintenance hangar off Bagram Airfield on a recent afternoon, you could find a CH-47 Chinook, an AH-64 Apache and two UH-60 Black Hawk in various states of repair.

What you did not see -- and what sets the mechanics of the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade apart from their predecessors in Afghanistan -- was a crowd of civilians poring over the aircraft.

Taking an approach that seems almost novel in a war that often appears rampant with civilian contractors, the brigade mechanics have opted to do the work themselves while breaking ground in Army aviation.

The brigade has cut nearly half the contractors assigned to it, even though it is on pace to fly more than any unit in the history of the Afghanistan war.

The streamlined maintenance program is based on the simple premise of letting soldiers do what they were trained to do while eliminating wasted time. It has the added bonus of saving millions of dollars, said Chief Warrant Officer 5 David Nolan, the head of maintenance for the brigade.

"It's nothing magical," said Nolan. "Maintenance is the hinge pin for the success of this CAB."

Nolan said he remembers his commander, Col. T.J. Jamison, telling him before the deployment that the brigade would do more work than any prior Army aviation unit in Afghanistan.

The decision to fly more than any other aviation unit was more than just bravado. Nolan said a constant aviation presence keeps soldiers safe because insurgents are hesitant to attack if they know air support is near.

"If we're out flying, things are pretty quiet or else they get quiet," he said.

Nolan knew that wasn't possible with the way the Army had been handling its aircraft maintenance. So, the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade decided to take control of the work itself, handing the task to soldiers with the 122nd Aviation Support Battalion, part of Task Force Atlas.

The move to eliminate the contractors was possible, in part, by a willingness to do things differently than the unit's predecessors and an unofficial competition of sorts, soldiers said.

Shortly after the brigade arrived, a team of soldiers and a team of civilians were each tasked with taking apart an Apache helicopter and performing routine maintenance and parts checks.

The civilian teams -- which consisted of two shifts of 14 people working around the clock -- finished in a little more than two weeks, said Staff Sgt. Brandon Cessna, who oversees maintenance on the Apaches. The soldier team -- a 12-man team that worked a 12-hour shift each day -- finished in seven days.

Shortly thereafter, the brigade fired the civilian teams, Cessna said.

"For me, it's a point of pride," he said. "We get paid an average of $40,000 a year. The civilians get paid $140,000. We're getting the work done twice as fast, and it's in much better shape. The civilians just weren't as thorough."

Since the soldiers took the lead, average phase maintenance -- when an aircraft has to be taken apart and put back together every few hundred flight hours -- has decreased from 30 days to 10 days, Cessna said.

The phase maintenance is meant to catch normal wear and tear before it becomes a bigger problem. It's also an opportunity to replace malfunctioning parts and clean the aircraft's inner workings.

"This one was in pretty bad shape," Cessna said, motioning to an Apache that was being put back together by soldiers in his unit.

Cessna said his team takes the helicopter completely apart -- something the civilian teams stopped short of. He said allowing soldiers, or green suits, to do the maintenance has led to fewer problems with the aircraft compared with past aviation brigades that have deployed to Bagram.

"The unit we replaced didn't do any maintenance at all," Cessna said. "We are doing everything green suit. We're doing it by the book and not having as many issues as other aviation brigades."

Soldiers said that since they know their friends in the brigade will be on the planes, they believe more care is taken, too.

"Nobody wants to have someone's life on their conscience," said Master Sgt. Lonnie Harper.

Nolan agreed.

"You don't have the caring that goes on here with contractors," he said. "We all have a personal stake in each other. Caring makes us do things other people couldn't do. You can't teach that."

Nolan said the brigade was assigned more than 400 civilian contractors when it arrived in Afghanistan. Now, it is down to 212, with many of the remaining civilians being experts that soldiers turn to for advice.

The brigade is not only working with fewer contractors, but it has fewer soldiers and more aircraft than previous units.

While its predecessors in Regional Command-East, the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade of Fort Drum's 10th Mountain Division, had about 3,200 soldiers and 130 aircraft, the 82nd brigade has 2,400 soldiers and an estimated 200 aircraft.

Nolan said the unit has helped save time by starting some maintenance early to avoid a backlog and eliminate downtime between phases and has instituted a fixed-wing flight, known as the Red Ball Express, that sends parts and passengers across the battle space six days a week, reducing the wait for parts.

The brigade also is much more thorough with checking parts. Nolan said a part is not assumed to be broken and every attempt is made to save expensive components.

All told, the maintenance program has saved the country millions once the cost of the contractors and other savings are added in.

"Typically, it costs about $3,200 for each hour of flight in an Apache," Nolan said. "Here, it costs less than $2,000 an hour."

"Money is very important to us," Nolan added. "We are very conscious about the money we spend here. We're all taxpayers. These things are expensive enough."

Copyright 2012 - The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.