Photo By Tech. Sgt. Zachary Wolf | R-11 fuel trucks prepare to deliver fuel to Air Force One on Joint Base...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska - It's 10 below zero and snow is on the ground everywhere. Airman 1st Class Bradley Welsh climbs out of his fuel truck to walk on the freshly plowed runway. He hooks up his hose into an underground fuel line to fill the C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane sitting on the tarmac. Welsh works with the crew chief to fill the C-17 as more than 15,000 gallons of fuel pass from the fuel line underground into the aircraft. Welsh monitors the fuel as he tries to stay warm in the cold Alaska weather. After the C-17 gets all the fuel it needs, Welsh unhooks his hose from the C-17 and the hydraulic fuel truck and packs everything up to head back to the shop.
The Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants Flight, 673d Logistics Readiness Squadron, supports any aircraft that lands that needs refueling. Whether it is Guard, the 3rd Wing, or distinguished visitors like Air Force One, POL is the shop that gets the fuel to the respective aircraft.
The POL shop works hand-in-hand with Defense Logistics Agency Energy and each component cannot do their job without the other.
"DLA-E is responsible for acquiring and storing all the fuel and we move the fuel to the aircraft for them," said Master Sgt. John Frierson, POL Flight non-commissioned officer in charge of fuels distribution and native of Knoxville, Tenn.
The fuel used on JBER arrives by boat at the port on the east side of base and is pumped into storage tanks. The fuel can be transported throughout the base through underground pipes to pump houses or even to hubs on the flight line.
"You are partially responsible for over three million gallons of fuel at the pump house," said Airman 1st Class Bradley Welsh, 673d LRS POL fuels apprentice and native of Belleville, Ill.
Last year the POL Flight refueled 11,017 aircraft with more than 34.5 million gallons of fuel.
Before fuel can be pumped into an aircraft, the POL lab runs tests to make sure it's not contaminated and that the fuel is safe to use.
Different aircraft have different rules for the quality of fuel that is put into that aircraft. For example, Air Force One has more strict guidelines on the fuel that can go into it.
"Every bit of fuel that comes on the base, we see it first," said Senior Airman Nathan Lewis, 673d LRS POL laboratory technician and native of Roseburg, Ore. "Before it gets issued out to anything, we touch it."
Before any fuel goes out to an aircraft it is filtered three times. If a test fails, they test it again to make sure it's a fail and if it fails again they drain the fuel and figure out why it is failing the tests.
"Any dirty fuel that enters the plane could potentially cause it to go down," Lewis said.
The right additives have to be in the fuel to make the aircraft safe to fly. One of the additives is a deicer that makes sure the fuel doesn't freeze because at high altitude the temperature is a lot colder than it is on the ground.
It's not just the fuel that gets tested by the laboratory technicians.
"We test every single receipt (of fuel) and every tank to make sure they are good," Lewis said.
Clean fuel ensures a mission can happen.
"If they don't know the fuel is clean, they can't use it," Lewis said.
According to Lewis, the laboratory runs more than 2,000 fuel samples a year.
The POL Flight wouldn't function without one of the most important parts. That part is the Fuel Service Center.
"We are the central nervous system of everything fuel-related," said Air Force Staff Sgt. Jamie Lamb, 673 LRS POL fuels service center controller and native of Marquette, Mich.
Every refueling job comes through the fuel center and they are the ones who tell the distribution team what trucks to use and what an aircraft needs and even how much fuel they need to put into that aircraft.
"Everything comes through us; it doesn't matter what it is on this base; anything fuel related comes through us," Lamb said.
Everything, from the tail number of the aircraft to the amount of fuel, is inputted into a program to keep all the operations organized.
Before November, everyone that delivered fuel operated out of the POL building next to the outdoor recreation building.
We pre-positioned six fuel trucks that are within a 45-second drive to the F-22 Raptor fighters rather than having our fuel trucks travel all around the flight line, said
Frierson.
With these pre-positioned fuel trucks, the F-22s can now perform "hot pits." A hot pit is when the F-22 leaves its engines running while the POL distribution team fills them up. This makes for a faster refuel time, which lets the aircraft get back in the air a lot quicker.
Frierson said the new process they implemented has saved more than $45,000 since November.
"Without us, nobody would be flying and none of the government vehicles would have gas because we also maintain the gas stations," Welsh said. "No one would be able to move.
| Date Taken: | 04.06.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 04.06.2012 19:23 |
| Story ID: | 86412 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, AK, US |
| Hometown: | BELLEVILLE, IL, US |
| Hometown: | KNOXVILLE, TN, US |
| Hometown: | MARQUETTE, MI, US |
| Hometown: | ROSEBURG, OR, US |
| Web Views: | 225 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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