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SAN ANTONIO – Aircraft Integrated Maintenance Operations San Antonio’s mission demands and celebrates excellence within its aircraft sustainment role. Defense Contract Management Agency’s AIMO San Antonio team performs overhaul, maintenance, modification, and repair operations and contractor logistics support. Their dedication ensures safety, operational lethality and mission capability, and when dealing with aircraft designed to project battlefield superiority, their home front support impacts global priorities.
“There are low, medium and high-risk areas (in the agency),” said Dr. Juanita Christensen, director of DCMA’s Technical Directorate. “The efforts in San Antonio are far beyond high-risk given the importance of these efforts to our national security.”
AIMO San Antonio is the largest Maintenance Repair Overhaul, or MRO, facility in the agency with a team of 96 employees, including 12 quality assurance specialists working with contractors on the F/A-18 Super Hornet’s service life modification, or SLM. The SLM program minimizes downtimes and extends aircraft lifespans by including a series of maintenance and structural upgrades to extend their original service life.
“MRO facilities are crucial for validating the continued airworthiness and safety of aircraft,” said Sonny Gomez, an AIMO San Antonio government flight representative. “We are able to provide a range of services, from routine inspections and preventative maintenance to complex repairs and component overhauls.”
The Texas-based AIMO team conducts more than 300 line-item checks per aircraft, ensuring each aircraft meets safety and performance standards.
“These checks and modifications are critical,” said Gomez. “For example, if a F/A-18 has completed its original programmed lifespan, the SLM allows us to modernize it and keep it flying safely and efficiently providing both cost-savings to the taxpayer and operational readiness for our troops.”
AIMO San Antonio works closely with contractors on the F/A-18 SLM since the program began it 2019. They have since delivered 42 Super Hornets, extending the aircrafts’ lifespan from 6,000 to 12,000 flight hours, effectively doubling their service life. The SLM checklist includes functional flight checks prior to delivery, which requires pilots to fly the aircraft, take notes and provide feedback to the quality team.
“Having a DCMA aircrew piloting the aircraft adds a personal touch,” said Andrew Johnson, AIMO San Antonio’s F/A-18 and F-15 quality supervisor. “You get to know them and that responsibility for their safety becomes even more personal.”
From call signs to unit logos, personalization can play a large role in the military pilot community and San Antonio is no different. The AIMO San Antonio team once surprised a former DCMA pilot with a water salute to commemorate his final military flight, traditionally known as a “Fini Flight.” This long-standing custom honors pilots who conclude their aviation careers by conducting a water salute on the flight line.
“It was a very bittersweet moment for me, but a great place to have that flight with a great team supporting me,” said former DCMA pilot, Navy Cmdr. Michael McLaughlin, who has since returned to the fleet as an air operations officer onboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) in a non-flying capacity.
McLaughlin’s final flight was a SLM functional check on the F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet, adding to over 2,500 logged flight hours during his Naval career. His aviation experience included training and operational missions before McLaughlin joined AIMO San Antonio. At DCMA, he completed more than 28 functional checks, inputs and delivery flights. McLaughlin piloted aircraft through different lifecycle stages during his time in service.
“This was my first time in an acquisition environment, which was a very maintenance-focused and detail-oriented type of flying,” McLaughlin said. “I took a lot of pride in knowing that the quality assurance team and I were the last ones to touch these jets to ensure they were fully operational before we sent them back to the fleet.”
There are currently two Navy F/A-18 pilots, and a naval flight officer assigned to AIMO San Antonio. They work closely with a DCMA Boeing St. Louis flight team, pilot contractors, and unit aircrews when conducting functional flight checks and delivering aircraft back to the fleet.
“DCMA’s mission has a direct impact on our work out here in the fleet,” McLaughlin said, reflecting on his time with the agency. “Their role in inspecting the quality of contractor-produced parts, supplies, weapons and materials ensures that we in the fleet receive what we need at the standards we expect. In combat we need our weapons, aircraft, sensors and defenses to operate ‘up-to-spec' every time. DCMA's enforcement of those contractual requirements are critical to our mission success.”
AIMO San Antonio’s team members delivered more than 2,000 aircraft over the past 25 years. In fiscal year 2024, the team flew a total of 126 military flight missions and almost 300 total flight hours.
“These numbers are inclusive to all programs we have on site,” Gomez said. “Regardless of the program, the goal is the same: we maintain, repair, and overhaul aircraft to perform future missions on time and at cost.”
The F/A-18 is just one out of eight major programs AIMO San Antonio supports, to include Air Force One.
“While the executive fleet is high visibility, it is just one of eight programs onsite that are of high strategic value for the nation,” said Air Force Col. Joann Kenneally, AIMO San Antonio’s commander. “This team takes a lot of pride and responsibility overseeing each aircraft as they come in and out of this site. I’m extremely proud of the team’s diligence in our mission and how everyone takes care of one another.”
| Date Taken: | 03.04.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2025 16:00 |
| Story ID: | 493482 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 49 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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