Vehicle maintainers get Snow Fleet ready for 50 below

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Nora Anton
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  It's nearing winter in Alaska and every Iceman knows what that means: inevitable snowfall, sub-zero temperatures, ice fog and snowplows barreling around base clearing the flightline, roads and parking lots.

Airmen of the 354th Logistics Readiness Squadron vehicle maintenance flight have been hard at work the past few months ensuring the 54 vehicles in the Snow Fleet are good-to-go to clear Eielson's traffic areas.

"Right now we're doing summer rebuild to catch the big fixes before winter hits, so petty breaks during winter won't incapacitate our entire Snow Fleet," said Senior Airman James Valdiviez, 354th LRS vehicle mechanic.

Airman Valdiviez worked the afternoon of Sept. 5 welding a push frame, the part that connects the cradle to the plow, on an Osh Kosh P Series roll-over plow, the vehicle residents will see pushing the broken up ice and snow to the sides of the roads.

"This is just to reinforce the support on the plow head, to make sure its sturdy enough to handle the workload it will be doing," he said.

The Snow Fleet's inventory consists of a mixture of plows, flightline brooms and snow blowers. The vehicle maintainers in the heavy equipment section have been busy with thorough 61-point preventative maintenance inspections on all the vehicles and doing needed repairs and upgrades on each asset.

"For summer rebuild vehicles on the Snow Fleet, an estimated 80 hours and two weeks go into each vehicle," said Tech. Sgt. Danny Padilla, 354th LRS NCO in charge of Snow Fleet. "For non-routine repairs during winter operations and on high-priority vehicles our goal is to return the asset back to service in less than 24 hours or the same day."

Sergeant Padilla gave his workers praise in helping keep the Eielson mission going.

"It's amazing to see the abundance of skills and experience our technicians possess," he said. "The ability to adapt to continuous upgrades in technologies and new challenges really keep Eielson's flightline open and the vehicle fleet ready for the extreme winter operations."