Photo By Tech. Sgt. Daniel Farrell | An Airman from the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing Maintenance Group...... read more read more
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New York Air Guard Airmen of the 106th Rescue Wing’s maintenance squadron spent a month teaching the ins and outs of C-130J maintenance to members of the Georgia Air Guard at F.S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach.
The maintainers from the 165 th Airlift Wing’s maintenance squadron trained from October 10 to Nov. 17, working side-by-side with the New Yorkers as they got hands-on training fixing the latest version of the version of the C-130.
The training was part of the Georgia Airmen’s process of converting from the C-130H version to the latest version C-130J, which is comparable to the HC-130J Combat King II search and rescue planes like those flown by the 106th.
The lessons learned during the 106th conversion in 2019 was that the training was challenging, said Master Sgt. Derek Morrison, 106th avionics flight chief.
The goal of the 106th maintenance squadron was ensure a smoother training process and to give them a chance to get hands-on and practice advanced trouble shooting, he said.
The 165th Airlift Wing started the aircraft conversion process in July of 2023 and will be replacing their legacy C-130H models with new C-130J models in December, according to MSgt Ashley Jones, the 165th avionics flight chief.
Prior to coming to the 106th, the Georgia Guardsmen completed a two-month C-130J training with the 373 rd Training Squadron, Detachment 4, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Jones said.
“The hands-on training has been very beneficial,” said Jones. “There are things you can’t always get in a trainer at a school house.”
Tech Sgt. Timothy Thompson, a 165th avionics technician, said the training has been helpful.
“Among our group we have a lot of maintenance experience,” Thompson said. “But being able to apply those basic principles that we already know, seeing how that applies to the new system has been really helpful to do firsthand.”
The improvement of the J-model is enormous, according to Thompson. The interface is more user friendly, he said.
“You just come out to the plane, turn it on and the software is ready to go for you do maintenance,” Thompson said. “Theres no uploading time or all that extra time.”
The biggest difference between the J-model and legacy H-model is that the J-model is called a ‘glass cockpit,’ so everything is more modernized and electric, said Jones. Theres no longer physical circuit breakers, which the maintainers were used to seeing, now they are electronic, Jones added.
“The most challenging part is continuing the training,” said Morrison. “The train-the-trainer portion of this is very difficult because they are going to have to take everything they learned here and train their [drill status guardsmen].”
Although this training opportunity is an important part of setting up the 165th for success with their J-model conversion, it is also a great opportunity to build rapport with another unit by sharing best practices which will also help our maintenance squadron as well, said Morrison.
| Date Taken: | 11.17.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 11.20.2023 11:24 |
| Story ID: | 458102 |
| Location: | WESTHAMPTON BEACH, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 117 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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