Nellis maintainers keep helicopters flying, enable CSAR mission Published Sept. 8, 2010 By Staff Sgt. Phillip Butterfield 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq -- When looking for a needle in a hay stack the proper tool always makes the job easier and Joint Base Balad's tool of choice is combat search and rescue. CSAR does not look for this needle on foot; they use the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter to look for aircrews that had to escape their stricken aircraft while on a mission. "CSAR's main goal is to respond to an accident site and retrieve the pilot and the crew," said 1st Lt. Brian Kim, 64th Expeditionary Helicopter Maintenance Unit officer in charge. "We enable CSAR operators to perform this rescue by maintaining the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, so at a moment's notice the aircrew can load up and take off on their mission." These maintainers keep the aircraft flying through a combination of special maintenance know-how and two specialized tools only found in a helicopter maintenance unit. "Besides using all the regular tools, such as wrenches and screwdrivers, the 64th uses vibration analysis monitors, rigging equipment for measuring rotor-blade angles--a specialty found with helicopter units," said Staff Sgt. Ian Nakachi, 64th EHMU flying crew chief. "Sometimes a pilot will notice a vibration in the aircraft while in flight," said Sergeant Nakachi, a native of Kaneohe, Hawaii, deployed from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. "If we cannot find the problem on the ground, flying crew chiefs will use the VAM to find the problem in flight as the pilot puts the helicopter through its paces. Flying crew chiefs will also fly out to repair a helicopter if it has to land with a maintenance issue and repair it on site. "There's no greater feeling after you fix a helicopter than to see it go off on a mission and watch it come back after saving a life," Sergeant Nakachi said. The maintenance these Airmen perform aids in more than just plucking aircrews from the gaping maw of possible death or capture--the maintainers provide a sense of security for aerial warriors before and during a mission. "We act as a safety net for the other aircrews," said Lieutenant Kim, native of Fullerton, Calif., deployed from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. "We're like having a medic in the platoon. If an issue arises where a pilot needs to exit the aircraft, he knows we will be on our way to pick them up, so it gives them that warm fuzzy feeling that help is coming." Although rescue maintenance is a career field that rewards hard work with a high sense of accomplishment, it also exposes Airmen to situations that are unsettling. "For rescue, when business is slow everything is good... it's one of those things that you would like to save lives every day," Sergeant Nakachi said. "However, if you are not saving lives every day, that means people are not getting hurt, which is also a good thing. I've been on deployments where we were saving lives every day and it was hard--not just the workload, but the some of the things you had to see."
