MANSFIELD, Ohio–Staff Sgt. Justin Mittelstadt doesn’t mind getting his hands a little greasy. In his eyes, that’s just part of the assignment.
“I go through a lot of uniforms,” he noted.
Mittelstadt is among many individuals at the 179th Airlift Wing tasked with the duty of carrying out an isochronal inspection (ISO) of the C-130H (Hercules) aircraft. An ISO is a detailed inspection of the entire airplane. Maintenance workers look for and repair any problems from nose to tail and wingtip to wingtip.
During an ISO, which takes about 20 days to complete, the aircraft is taken apart, piece by piece, for a thorough inspection. “We’re kind of getting into the ‘guts’ of the plane,” Master Sgt. Doug Nebergall said.
Nebergall, who oversees much of the planning and scheduling of the ISOs and assists members with any technical questions they may have, said ISOs are performed for general maintenance and preventative measures. “If you let something like a crack go long enough, that can become a big problem,” he noted.
ISOs are headed up by ISO dock workers and involve several different specialists, such as avionics specialists, sheet metal specialists, engine specialists, among others.
Because some of their planes have been at the base for a relatively short amount of time, not all of them have undergone an ISO performed by members of the 179th. Two of the eight aircraft arrived in Mansfield in October of last year.
Nebergall noted, “We’re trying to get the planes up to our standards.” Mittelstadt added, “We ‘Mansfieldize’ the planes.”
C-130s were flown at the 179th from 1976-2010. In 2010, the base converted to C-27J Spartan planes. Nebergall said their unit members did not perform the ISOs for the C-27J Spartan aircraft; instead, they did ISOs for other units’ C-130 planes. He said they performed approximately 15 ISOs for units in such places as California, Delaware and Texas.
Fortunately, that worked to their advantage by helping them keep their training up-to-date because in 2013, the base switched back to C-130 aircraft.
Nebergall said they still send members to other units from time to time, but not as often since they have their own fleet of eight C-130s to tend to now.
ISOs are carried out every 540 days for each of the 179th’s C-130s. And every 270 days, Home Station Checks (HSC) are performed. HSCs, however, are not as in-depth as the ISOs, Nebergall said.
Editor’s Note: This is the second story in the “Embedded at the 179th” series.
