Photo By Staff Sgt. Christopher Thornbury | A U-2 Dragon Lady sits in a hangar prepared for flight July 9, 2019, at Al Dhafra Air...... read more read more
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The U-2 Dragon Lady soars 70,000 feet above dangerous territories to gather intelligence on adversary positions and assets by employing advanced camera systems. This information allows military leaders to make informed decisions shaping the armed forces efforts in different areas of operations.
Avionics technicians make these missions possible by maintaining several mission essential systems pilots’ lives depend on.
“The U-2 is a flying avionics package,” said Tech. Sgt. Trevis Hightower, 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron lead avionics technician. “All the sensors that take images, the signal intelligence packages, data link, pretty much everything that allows the U-2 to do its job, belongs to avionics. Without avionics, the U-2 would just be a high-flying glider.”
Avionics technicians troubleshoot and repair critical electronics systems that pilots utilize during their missions including multi-functional displays, auto-pilot, navigation, landing aids, radios, electronic warfare, data link and others – their equipment is used throughout the flights duration.
“We constantly hear stories from our pilots of how they encounter threats during operations and don’t even bat an eye because they have so much confidence in our electronic warfare system combined with the climbing abilities of the airframe,” said Hightower. “It’s a surreal opportunity to provide that kind of support to our pilots and mission. The feeling is incredible.”
During their rotation, the team has ensured every mission is operational.
“Working out here at ADAB has been one of the best teams I’ve been a part of,” said Hightower. “From supervision down to the Airmen, the teamwork of the Dragon Aircraft Maintenance Unit has allowed us to achieve historic metrics never seen by our program.”
The unit has met every maintenance metric standard for the last three months consecutively, according to Hightower.
“These metrics measure how healthy our fleet is, how well we are achieving our mission and how well we are taking care of the aircraft,“ said Hightower. “For three months straight we never missed a mission, the jets were always fixed in the allotted time and without reoccurring discrepancies were experienced during flight. This feat requires sound maintenance practices, technical expertise and hard work from all of the maintainers - with a little luck sprinkled in.”
| Date Taken: | 07.09.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 07.26.2019 03:29 |
| Story ID: | 333122 |
| Location: | AL DHAFRA, US |
| Web Views: | 55 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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