For two years, maintenance crews from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, have kept the 317th Airlift Group’s C-130 Hercules aircraft flying over lands far removed from the Lone Star State. This week, the unit ends 24 consecutive months of deployment and is heading home.

Hercules aircrews with the 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron and maintainers attached to the 376th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron deployed here in January. Other locations remain classified, but the aircraft have been temporarily housed at up to three different deployed bases at once. It all adds up to a lot of flying for some old aircraft.

“All of our planes were built in 1973 and 1974. They’ve been flown hard into unimproved airfields that are rutted, dusty and covered with gravel,” said Capt. Gerald Gallegos, a maintenance officer. “It takes a lot of dedication and persistence by professional crew chiefs, specialists and back-shop personnel to keep these planes in the air.”

The types of missions flown add to the stress placed on aircraft also, according to the captain.

“Flying these planes into harm’s way is not anything like flying around the flagpole back home or moving cargo and passengers within the United States,” he said. “When these planes get opened up back at Dyess for their six-month home station check or 330-day inspection, we’re finding lots of cracks.

Gallegos said the aircraft are flying three to four times more than they did before 9-11.

C-130s are small compared to the C-5 Galaxy, 757s and other jumbo jets that bring troops and cargo to Manas. Airfields in Afghanistan cannot support the bigger planes, so troops and cargo must be split into smaller loads and ferried down range in the Hercules.

Dyess aircraft have moved 11,521.6 short tons of cargo and 20,169 passengers while flying 9,514.2 hours during 3,873 sorties since arriving here in January. The 317th Airlift Group has 29 aircraft. [ANN Thanks Tech. Sgt. James A. Rush, 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs]

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