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Alamo Wing walks the line

By Tech. Sgt Collen McGee, 433rd Airlift Wing / Published May 30, 2006

Lt. Col. Charles Combs, 433rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander, clears debri from the bottom of a gate leading onto the flight line during the May wing wide Foreign Object Damage Prevention walk. Members from every work center wandered parking lots, flight line areas and roadways picking up anything that could cause damage to tires, aircraft engines or harm personel. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Collen McGee)
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Lt. Col. Charles Combs, 433rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander, clears debri from the bottom of a gate leading onto the flight line during the May wing wide Foreign Object Damage Prevention walk. Members from every work center wandered parking lots, flight line areas and roadways picking up anything that could cause damage to tires, aircraft engines or harm personel. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Collen McGee)

Alamo Wing members walk the line in the early morning light. Awareness of Foreign Object Damage potentials increased wing-wide participation in prevention programs including events like FOD walks. Foreign objects can be loose bolts, washers, wire and even partes of the concrete or the ramp the aircraft are parked on. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Collen McGee, 433rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs)
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Alamo Wing members walk the line in the early morning light. Awareness of Foreign Object Damage potentials increased wing-wide participation in prevention programs including events like FOD walks. Foreign objects can be loose bolts, washers, wire and even partes of the concrete or the ramp the aircraft are parked on. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Collen McGee, 433rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs)

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LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- You see them early in the morning before the fighters launch from the unit next door. Airmen, from the 149th Fighter wing, walking along the taxiway looking for foreign objects that could damage aircraft. In May, Alamo Wing Airmen took walking the line one step farther.
Everyone from the newest airmen to the commanding general of the 433rd Airlift Wing got involved. Every available person walked across parking lots, roads along the aircraft parking ramp.
The goal, to increase awareness and to prevent Foreign Object Damage by finding and removing any object that doesn’t belong there. Pallets, broken glass, wire, washers, bolts rocks and loose pieces of the concrete ramp were removed.
“The reason why FOD prevention is so important is the cost to the Air Force,” said Col. Howard Seid, 433rd AW vice commander.
“We have one of the highest rates of fan blade damage and that cost relates not only to material cost but to manpower cost,” said Col. Seid. “Some of our FOD comes from internal engine problems but much of it comes from our large engines picking up rocks and such off of the ramp.”
The cost per engine can be pretty high and repairs cut into the operating budget of the wing.
“For one of our engines, the rebuild value is about 2.5 mill a new engine is about 7 mill
It weighs 12,000 lbs it produces 48,000lbs of thrust – even with those types of numbers something as simple as a washer, a nut or a bold or a cotter key can render it unserviceable.
FOD is expensive but it is preventable.
“If we take the time to just get in the habit of looking around the ramp as we are walking around the airplanes it will make a difference,” said Colonel Seid.
But the potential cost of FOD can be much higher than the money required to fix a few fan blades or replace an engine.
“It’s a silent killer,” said Master Sergeant Dan Rodriguez, quality assurance supervisor and the wing FOD monitor. “If its not contained it can bring one of our aircraft to the ground”
FOD doesn’t differentiate due to rank and neither does participation in FOD prevention.
“We have to have everyone, from the top down participating,” said Sergeant Rodriguez. “It’s very important because when a FOD incident occurs it has no limits, it has no rank. It can hurt anyone from a civilian to the general flying the plane. It can kill anybody.”
But foreign objects pose more than a threat to aircraft in flight, damage can be extensive even before an aircraft leaves the ground.
“Rocks can also cause damage as we are taxiing around the ramp,” said Colonel Seid. “Our large engines throw loose rocks behind them at over 100 mph. This can obviously cause damage not only to our people but to buildings and vehicles.”
Injury, death, property damage, each one can have a major impact on mission capability. 
“Our mission capability is very important right now because our mission is going to increase,” said Sergeant Rodriguez. “We can’t allow something as simple as a washer to impact our mission. With the schoolhouse coming on… we can’t afford to have failure due to FOD.
Preventing a negative mission impact is something anyone can do. And it’s easy.
“In a general area, (not on the flight line), foreign objects are very important to police up and not leave anything behind,” said Sergeant Rodriguez. “If you see something in the road either pick it up or report it to somebody. If you are going to penetrate the entry control point (go on the flight line), follow all the FOD directives, remove your hat, and know that whatever you went onto the flight line with, you are coming off the flight line with.”