Photo By Sgt. Judith Dacosta | Air Force 1st Lt. Raymond J. Elmore, the 732nd ECES, Det. 6, deputy officer in charge...... read more read more
The 732nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron, Detachment 6, has been assisting the 84th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy) to improve Logistical Support Area Anaconda since January by building various facilities. At the top of the list of their accomplishments during their short tour in country is a large, new PAX terminal that the 732nd ECES built with nothing but determination and a long wishlist of supplies.
"The new PAX terminal for helicopters and Black Hawks is 9,000 square feet," said Air Force 1st Lt. Raymond Elmore, the 732nd ECES, Det. 6, deputy OIC of construction. Previously, the staff at the PAX terminal worked out of a small trailer-sized building, he said.
The new facility is called a K-span and it took five weeks to build, said Elmore. "We completed the project May 12, however, the building won't be operational until after about another month," he said.
"Our replacement team, also from the 732nd ECES, Det. 6, plan to build a second story inside the complex and partition the inside," said Elmore.
From the outside, the building "looks like an oil drum tipped on its side" and is 22 feet high, said Elmore.
"What is remarkable," said Elmore, "is that our team was not outfitted to do this line of work." He said the unit normally works in the planning phase for buildings and not in construction.
Therefore, the 53 servicemembers in the unit had to borrow and scrounge for the tools they needed to accomplish the mission, said Elmore.
"We borrowed tools from the 84th ECB (H), the 130th Engineer Brigade and even drove to Speicher to pick up some additional tools," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark Voss, the 732nd ECES, Det. 6, project manager of Catfish Air.
The building started out as a hole in the ground that the unit had to fill with dirt and concrete, said Voss. Then a large roll of sheet metal was run through an automated building machine that formed the metal into a two-foot-wide piece of sheet metal spanning roughly 80 feet in length, he added.
Five pieces of the 80-foot long formed metal were then stacked and clamped together using a "cowboy clamp" or C-Clamp, said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Shane Merchant, a 732nd ECES Det. 6, structural craftsman for the project. It takes about eight to 15 people to put the arches in place so it may then be lifted onto the building site with a crane, he added.
One hundred and sixty pieces of formed metal were stacked together this way to form the building, said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Rosseau, a 732nd ECES Det. 6, structural craftsman for the project.
The new PAX terminal will provide a larger space to accommodate the approximately 10,000 people and 400,000 lbs. of cargo that the terminal processes each month, according to the staff at the terminal.
| Date Taken: | 06.07.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 06.07.2006 15:53 |
| Story ID: | 6726 |
| Location: |
| Web Views: | 141 |
| Downloads: | 53 |
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