MANSFIELD — U.S. Sen. Robert Portman visited the 179th Airlift Wing at Lahm Airport Thursday, and spoke with the unit about some upgrades to make piloting aircrafts more safe.
“It’s great to be back at the 179th. This is one of our best-performing National Guard units,” Portman said. “I’m here to talk about how to help them with their base operations under the military construction bill — they have a couple projects we’re working on, including the emergency service center. Secondly, we were talking about the modernization program for the airplanes. I’ve been pushing to get the Air Force to give our Guard some of the upgrades in terms of the C-130 (airplanes) and we got to go and see one of the C-130s today and got to see why they need upgrades. That will help me go back to Washington, D.C. and advocate for them.”
“I think it’s really important for pilot safety as we talked about today. We want to be sure our pilots and crew have the best avionics,” Portman said. “A lot of the upgrades that are happening to the C-130H, which is the plane that they have here, are about the inside of the plane: avionics, sensors and navigation.”
Vice Commander Todd Thomas said the upgrades for the C130s included radio and communications as well as modernizing the flight deck and its instruments.
“More reliable instruments and more modernized,” Thomas said.
Col. Jim Camp said the meeting with Portman went very well.
“He’s impressed with us. We’re a very lean-forward unit. There’s a high level of volunteerism. We’re taking these aircrafts and seeking out missions. This unit is running the engine at the redline,” Camp said. “Meaning we are leaning as far as we can without falling over. We just got back from Africa and we are going to go to Jordan soon. Then we are going to Serbia this summer.”
Portman said he also was briefed on several missions the 179th had operated, including one in Chad.
“I’m really proud of them. They are doing great work and providing a very necessary component for services not being filled by active duty,” the senator said. “It was really great to come here and see what all is going on. I’ll go back to D.C. and help them all I can… They are a critical part of our military and sometimes the guard is not given the best equipment, and sometimes they are not recognized as they should be.”
