182d Aircraft Maintenance On Top - Again Published Nov. 8, 2009 By Tech. Sgt. Dawn Anderson 182 CF Peoria, IL -- 182nd Airlift Wing maintenance personnel achieved the highest Mission Capability rating for C‐130 units in the Air National Guard in Fiscal Year '09, and the second highest for C‐130 units in the entire Air Force ‐ 83.37%. That rating means that 83.37% of the unit's aircraft were mission ready and available to fly last year. That number could give you the impression that the unit's aircraft were broken 16.63% of the time, but that's not the case. Each aircraft is taken out of mission capability status for inspections after a designated number of flying hours. A Home Station Check, or HSC, is required after every 225 flying hours and requires 4 days to complete. After another 225 flying hours, the aircraft requires an isochronal inspection that takes it out of operation for 6 weeks. For most of the past year there have been 6 aircraft on base, so if one of the aircraft is out for an HSC or iso inspection, the mission capability rate automatically lowers to 83.33%. According to Maj. D.K. Carpenter, AMXS Commander, a lot of hard work by maintenance personnel is the primary reason for their excellent numbers. "Our maintainers that are out there turning the wrenches are battling day in and day out to make this happen." According to Carpenter, maintenance personnel often work overtime to get a plane repaired quickly. He also credits decreased isochronal inspection times, for contributing to their accomplishment. "The iso's have done a really good job of streamlining the process and shrinking their time and getting the airplane back quicker, which gives you a better mission capable rate." Maintenance personnel work hard to get the airplanes fixed even though they may not be tasked with a mission the next day. "It's really not a numbers game for us in maintenance, it's about providing for the customer, and our customer is operations," says Carpenter. "Our job... is to give them as many airplanes as we can give them. At any time the generals can come down and say we're going to war. We want to be ready for that call, that's our mission."