Photo By Sgt. Brandon Brashere | Krizyztoff Bernecki fro LRC - Aviation assists Sgt. Igor Burliai from 1-2 Attack...... read more read more
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Currently across the European countries of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania approximately 8,000 soldiers from six ally and partner nations are participating in exercise Saber Guardian 19 – an exercise co-led by the Romanian Land Forces and U.S. Army Europe designed to increase interoperability among participating nation militaries and strengthen regional security cooperation.
Among those many Soldiers and military vehicles travels a cargo van, stocked with tools and a civilian maintenance contact team designed to support the aircraft maintenance needs of the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade (12th CAB), 7th Army Training Command (7th ATC).
The use of civilian contractors to provide helicopter maintenance support is not the typical set-up for a combat aviation brigade, but it fits the 12th CAB’s needs as they are not a typical combat aviation brigade.
The 12th CAB, once one of the largest CABs in the Army, was downsized during the Army’s Aviation Restructure Initiative in 2014.
The number of aircraft in the unit was reduced and the aviation support battalion (ASB) that would typically provide maintenance support to a CAB was cut.
The unit no longer needed the services of a full-sized ASB, but it did need something to meet the maintenance needs of the aircraft it still had, said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jon Hulse, brigade aviation maintenance officer, 12th CAB.
“We are a non-standard brigade, so we are developing non-standard solutions,” said Hulse.
The brigade worked with the 7th ATC and the 21st Theater Sustainment Command to contract out for a team of approximately 70 civilians, brought on board incrementally, to supplement the aircraft maintenance done by Soldiers in the unit, making the 12th CAB the only CAB in the Army to be set up with maintenance support provided by a team of civilians.
The plan is reviewed every quarter to ensure the number of civilians contracted for still meets the needs of the unit.
"It’s crucial that the maintenance performed must be supplemental in nature to the work already being performed by soldiers so that their training is not impeded and so that we are good stewards of our budget." said Hulse.
Out of the team of civilians, five of them traveled with the 12th CAB to provide support during exercise Saber Guardian 19.
“They are a maintenance contact team that is able to be autonomous and mobile and react to any maintenance we need them to perform – whether it is (from) differed maintenance down to aircraft recovery teams, we can use them as we see fit during the exercise,” said Hulse.
Nico Rodriguez from LRC-Aviation is a special projects supervisor for DynCorp International – the company contracted to provide the aircraft maintenance support and is the team lead for the group providing support to the 12th CAB during Saber Guardian 19.
Rodriguez said most of the civilians are former military and have experience working in the field in training environments and traveling with the unit benefits the civilian maintenance teams as well.
“Personnel accompanying the unit on mission like this also benefit from augmenting the military units as it builds cohesion between LRC-Aviation and the military, so we all work as one toward the same end goals,” said Rodriguez. “This is just as much team building as it is aviation maintenance.”
| Date Taken: | 06.13.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 06.13.2019 10:03 |
| Story ID: | 327178 |
| Location: | HU |
| Web Views: | 286 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 12th CAB brings helicopters, Soldiers and civilians to Saber Guardian 19, by Daniela Vestal, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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