Good to the last drop: LRS fuels keep A-10s flying

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. William Huntington
  • 442nd Fighter Wing public affairs
While the “good to the last drop” phrase comes from a tag line for an old coffee commercial, the 442nd Logistics Readiness Fuels section “Hosers” strive to make their liquid products meet or exceed the same criteria.

It’s one thing to have a bad cup of coffee, quite another if you’re flying a jet with bad fuel. 

“There’s a lot more to this job than meets the eye,” said Senior Master Sgt. James Hamby, 442nd LRS Fuels superintendent. “We’ve do a lot more than just pump in gas down here. We got to take that stuff from cradle to grave.” 

While the most commonly-known product the Hosers handle is jet fuel, they are in the gasoline and diesel fuel business too. Oh, and by the way, they also handle liquid oxygen, more commonly referred to as LOX, and liquid nitrogen too.
 
All of their products are handled with an eye toward providing only the safest, most reliable product grades to their “customers,” and when the lives of anyone flying in a U.S. Air Force plane are concerned, it can be a matter of life or death. 

“We are responsible for the quality of all the fuel,” Sergeant Hamby said. “We make sure it’s clean, dry, serviceable fuel. We take care of it from the time it gets on this base until it is put on an aircraft.” 

JP-8 is the only grade of jet fuel on Whiteman AFB for aircraft. Diesel is provided to local military vehicles, government vehicles and power equipment using that type of fuel. Unleaded gasoline, also known as “Mo-Gas” is used in other vehicles and equipment. They basically take care of fuel for all of the government vehicles on base.
 
Two other products they dispense are liquid oxygen for breathing purposes and also liquid nitrogen.
 
The nitrogen is primarily used for inflating aircraft tires. Regular air out of an air tank is not used because of moisture content and for compression reasons. When aircraft get up to a certain altitude, nitrogen is a much more stable gas to use. 

LOX is what the pilots breathe. It’s what the pilots depend on to keep them alive and it’s another very dangerous product. It’s stored at more than minus two hundred degrees and it boils when it hits the air. It’s also an explosion hazard, especially if it comes in contact with oil or grease. 

Indeed for all of the products delivered by thte Hosers there is a great need to maintain quality and safety. 

“We receive our fuel from a contractor … an outside agency … and they add all of the additives that are required to meet military specifications,” Sergeant Hamby said. Once it gets on this base, it’s our job to ensure all of those additives were added in a proper amount. 

“We have our lab guys pull a random in-line sample that’s coming off the delivery truck and take the sample back to the lab to run specification tests. For JP-8 we’ll confirm that it has a flashpoint of more than 100 degrees to make it safer for everybody to handle. We’ll run a conductivity inhibitor test. This verifies that the product is less likely to ignite from random static electricity in a normal atmosphere.” 

Another very important test is for fuel system icing inhibitor. 

“A refractometer is the tool we use to determine the content of fuel system icing inhibitor in the fuel,” Tech. Sgt. Jim Bishop, NCOIC of Quality, said. “The inhibitor lowers the freeze point of the small particles of water always found in fuel.” 

Once an airplane gets to certain altitudes, that water can turn to ice. When that ice starts going through the aircraft’s filters, those ice particles can clog the filter screens, and in turn, an aircraft could be lost along with its pilot. The additive attaches itself to the water and keeps it from freezing. The water goes on through the engine to be burned with the fuel. Sergeant Bishop also scrutinizes the fuel for dirt and other contaminants. 

Hamby’s shop is a blend of new blood and proven experience. They range from brand new to more than 18 years of experience. 

“We’re a 12-person shop and we’re fully staffed right now,” Sergeant Hamby said, “We were short here last year. We were down to seven individuals but in the last three or four months we got four brand new troops as straight out of tech-school arrivals. We were getting to be kind of an older group here … techs, masters and seniors … we needed some young blood in here.” 

One of those newer troops getting trained on identifying bad LOX is Airman 1st Class Josue Santiago. To transfer LOX from the storage container to the LOX cart, he has to don protective gear including an apron and a plexiglass face shield. 

“It a pretty dangerous substance,” Airman Santiago said. “If you get any of it on you, it can freeze your skin.” 

Senior Airman Evan Michael agrees about the need for caution. “Liquid oxygen is around negative 297 degrees,” Airman Michael said. “Also liquid nitrogen is negative 321 degrees so we are working with some extremely cold substances.” 

It doesn’t take much imagination to envision what would happen to any flesh coming into contact with either product. 

Another critical step when transferring LOX is the smell test. If liquid oxygen is bad it will have a rotten egg smell. Before it is ever issued they sniff out the tell-tale sign of bad product. 

“It would be obvious if it was bad and we don’t want our pilots going up there with bad oxygen,” Sergeant Hamby said. “We also do a test for particles, dirt and discoloration but primarily it’s the smell. 

The 442nd Hosers maintain they have first-class support from their 509th Bomb Wing counterparts. 

“We couldn’t make it without the 509th (Bomb Wing),” Sergeant Hamby said. “They are here every day and they keep us in the loop as far as what’s going on in the fuels world.”
Airman Santiago is still fairly new to the Fuels game, and when asked about what it's like working with the 442nd Hosers, he has a positive answer. 

“I enjoy working here a lot,” he said. “Everyone is just great to work with.”
Sergeant Hamby knows why. 

“Fuels is a pretty tight-knit group no matter if you are from here or there,” Sergeant Hamby said. “It’s a big family that acts more like a small one. Even if you are POL from somewhere else you just take good care of each other.”