McChord competes at AMTS Maintenance Skills Competition

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Danielle Kreger
  • 317th Airlift Group
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Three Air Mobility Command maintenance teams gathered March 9-12 in Las Vegas, Nev., to compete in the Aviation Maintenance Technology Society's second annual Maintenance Skills Competition.

Teams from McChord, Dyess and McGuire Air Force Bases, as well as a U.S. Navy team, competed with civilian maintenance teams from commercial airlines, aviation colleges, and other organizations.

The competition consisted of 12 separate events testing the maintenance technicians' ability to accomplish various tasks commonly found in the civilian aircraft maintenance profession. These included a 40-minute engine event in which the teams simultaneously worked a hydraulic pump and tachometer generator; an advanced composite material damage event where teams used a tap inspection method to find damage not visible from the surface; and an electrical troubleshooting event in which the teams had to find the best fix for various fault codes while spending minimal money on parts.

Though the events were geared toward the civilian sector of aircraft maintenance, the skills required were very similar to those used by military maintainers. Safety played a large role in the overall scoring of each event as each team was required to follow safety guidelines enforced in both military and civilian sectors, such as safety goggle use.

In civilian aircraft maintenance, technicians have an "airframe and powerplant" license and are expected to perform in all areas of aircraft maintenance. As the competition was designed to test the skills of an A&P licensed mechanic, AMC teams faced the additional challenge of selecting the right mix of career fields to best cover all the events, some of which occurred simultaneously.

Each event was graded based on completion time, with teams receiving a time penalty for incorrect troubleshooting or safety violations. The team with the shortest overall time was named the winner in each of the four competition categories: military, aviation college, general aviation, and commercial.

After two days of heated competition, the results were in and two out of the three AMC teams took home awards in the military category. Third place went to the Navy team, whose time was five hours, five minutes and 18 seconds. McChord's team took second place, with a time of four hours, 33 minutes and 22 seconds. First place went to the McGuire team, which finished at four hours, 25 minutes and eight seconds.

The McChord team finished sixth overall out of fifteen teams.

"Although we didn't know what to expect competing in civilian aircraft-based events, we were happy to bring home some hardware and we look forward to next year's competition," said Master Sgt. Michael Wisniewski, 62nd Maintenance Squadron, McChord's team chief. "Hopefully we'll bring 'Best Maintenance Team' honors to McChord."

The other members of McChord's team were Staff Sergeants Anthony Nowak and Paul Weeks, 62nd MXS, and Technical Sergeants Seanjon Judkins and Nicholas Thompson, 62 Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.

"I was very proud of our team's effort, motivation and professionalism," said Col. Tracy Smiedendorf, 62nd Maintenance Group commander. "They represented Team McChord with class and confidence."

62nd Maintenance Group contributed to this article.

Link to video from Nellis AFB:
http://www.nellis.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090326-135.wmv