Photo By Sgt. Thomas Day | CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (26 August 2006) ---Sgt. Tom Semmens of Soldotna, Alaska, washes...... read more read more
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CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (26 August 2006) ---The Udairi Army Airfield, located at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, opened a new helicopter cleaning facility making it the one and only stop for Third Army helicopter crews preparing to redeploy their aircrafts back to their home stations.
Without a washrack facility at Camp Buehring, redeploying crews had been cleaning their helicopters through Camp Doha, before the Doha compound closed earlier this year, according to the Udairi Army Airfield commander.
"Udairi is now a one-stop shop," said Col. Joseph E. Cooley, an Arkansas National Guardsman and the Udairi Army Airfield commander. "As soon as an aircraft is cleaned...customs inspects it, marks it and sends it back to the port." Where once crews had to redeploy their aircrafts from several different compounds, now it can start and finish the process at Camp Buehring.
The new washrack facility enables the crews to disarm their aircrafts of Kevlar armament and external weapon systems, wash off the dirt and sand collected in the Iraqi desert, and transport their helicopters directly to the U.S. port in Kuwait City for inspection and debarkation.
The facility has 12 washing points, all set on a small decline leading to a gutter. Water used to wash the dirt off the aircrafts will trickle down into the gutter leading into three tanks, where it will be collected, filtered and used again.
A contracted construction team and the Navy Seabees of the U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalions 7 and 21 – Reserve component units from Gulfport, Miss., and Lakehurst, N.J., respectively – teamed together for the project.
"They needed someone with special skills (to build the washrack)," said Lt. Col. Karen D. Gattis, Cooley's top operations officer. "Teams that do asphalt, plumbing, concrete, electrical...a lot of the guys in their civilian occupation, that's what they do at home."
Cooley took command of the airfield in June, about the same time the Seabees began work on the project. Six weeks later, both the commander and the men and women who built the washracks watched the facility open for operation, Aug. 9.
| Date Taken: | 08.28.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 08.28.2006 14:14 |
| Story ID: | 7572 |
| Location: | CAMP BUEHRING, KW |
| Web Views: | 211 |
| Downloads: | 62 |
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