Laughlin NDI helps save lives detecting catastrophic faults

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Olufemi A. Owolabi
  • 47th Flying Training Wing
LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  With about 90,000 sorties flown here annually, workers in Laughlin's maintenance facilities are busy keeping the base's aircraft in top-notch condition.

One of these maintenance workshops is the Non-Destructive Inspection laboratory.

The shop, as part of the 47th Maintenance Directorate, is responsible for performing invaluable inspections which are able to detect cracks, corrosion and other degradation factors on all Laughlin aircraft.

The unit also analyzes engine oil, through a process called Spectrometric Oil Analysis, to detect any wear and tear which might cause a catastrophic failure to an aircraft.

Due to the nature of works performed by the NDI unit, members of the shop described the job as directly critical to mission accomplishment because it is all about saving lives.

"All inspections we perform are in critical-failure areas," said Terri Stauffer, NDI unit supervisor. "I will admit there is a high degree of job satisfaction when you identify something that would have, without a doubt, failed, most likely in flight, and you go home that day realizing you may have saved a life, and at the least prevented further damage to the component."

Most of the inspections the unit performs on a daily basis are not visible to the naked eye, so unit members use various advanced techniques for detecting faulty parts.

"We use various methods such as X-rays, ultrasonics, eddy current, magnetic particle, or penetrant to perform tests that require none or minimal part disassembly; thus the 'non-destructive' adjective," Stauffer said.

Taking engine oil for example, the NDI shop analyzes an oil sample for "trend"-- a running history of the metals contained in the engine oil.

"If a component fails often, we can see an increase in the oil of the metals used to make that particular component," she said. "If a bearing is about to fail, we may see an increase in iron and silver or chromium. We can then take action to prevent that engine from operating, as a result preventing possible catastrophic failure in flight."

With only seven members, the shop is currently running a two-shift schedule to ensure Laughlin demands are met. "Given enough employees, we could easily support a 24-hour operation; our work load is that heavy," Stauffer added.

Each month, the unit performs more than eight inspections on the T-1s, 14 on T-6s, and more than 10 inspections on T-38s and about three on the T-38 Phase aircraft.

"Around 300 aircraft parts, such as wheels, brake systems, and landing gear parts are brought into our shop," added the supervisor, who has been in the NDI career for 16 years, "and we inspect around 1,300 oil samples each month."

Despite the challenges and the dynamic nature of the job, members of NDI shop take pride in their job.

According to Garry Dau, an NDI tester here, no matter what the job is, a technician is always on the alert to ensure flaws in aircraft parts are detected in a timely manner.

"The NDI career field was established with the primary goals of saving lives and saving military assets," Stauffer said "That is why we are here."