Altus Airmen provide airfield support

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Megan E. Acs
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --   The 97th Operations Support Squadron air traffic control and landing systems shop is broken up into airfield systems and radar maintenance, and is responsible for maintaining vital pieces of equipment necessary for Altus AFB to complete its mission.

The airfield systems side of the shop is responsible for the ground-to-air radio systems, which include receivers, transmitters, transceivers, the enhanced terminal voice switch, and the digital audio legal recorder, the remote control status unit that controls the instrument landing system.

While most of the equipment is used by air traffic controllers, the ATCALS shop is responsible for keeping it up and running.

"Ground-to-air radios allow communication between air traffic controllers and pilots," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Richard Oliver, an airfield systems technician. "The voice switch acts as a hub for all communication in and out of the air traffic control tower. The air traffic controllers use this to select which radio to use to speak to any given aircraft."

The digital recorder notes all communication in and out of the air traffic control tower. These recordings are used when there is a mishap, or when the air traffic controllers need to verify if something was or was not said.

Antennae, with the instrument landing system, provide pilots a center line for landing. If pilots cannot see the runway, they still receive signals from the ground that allows them to line up the aircraft horizontally and vertically on the runway.

Without the equipment the ATCALS shop maintains, the air traffic controllers would have no way to communicate with pilots.

"Without us, the air traffic controllers and pilots couldn't do their jobs," said U. S. Air Force Senior Airman Alexyss Meza, a 97th airfield systems technician.

"We're the ones who no one really knows about until something breaks," said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Black, 97th NCO in charge of airfield systems.

Down the hall is the ATCALS radar maintenance shop; The Airmen who work here are tasked with maintaining the digital air surveillance radar, the monopulse secondary surveillance radar, standard terminal automated replacement system, flight data input and output radar, and the next generation radar.

For both sections of the ATCALS shop, preventative maintenance is a primary responsibility.

"Our foremost responsibility is ensuring the equipment is working and conducting preventative maintenance," said Black. "We have scheduled maintenance intervals on every piece of equipment to ensure that it is operational."

Because Altus AFB is a training base, keeping track of aircraft and communicating with the pilots-in-training is especially important.

"If our equipment breaks, the whole mission of this airfield stops, or has to change. You have all these hours of all these people out there who are affected," said Steve Dickson, who is an electronics technician for the 97th. "The students here only have so much time to complete their syllabus, so we have to get things fixed in a hurry."

While the ATCALS shop is often in the background, they are essential to the Altus AFB mission.

"It's rewarding knowing you're a cog in the wheel that makes everything work. It's good to know that everybody is able to get out there and do what they're supposed to do, and we're able to get these guys trained and ready for downrange," said Dickson. "And a big part of it is also is the satisfaction of being able to fix something. It's a rewarding feeling when you're able to come in and fix something broken, analyze it and repair it so that it can get back online."