Welder teaches commander

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Emily F. Alley
  • 442d Fighter Wing
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  When Master Sgt. Thomas Smith, Fabrication Flight Chief for the 476th Maintenance Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., was considering who he should nominate for Senior Noncommissioned Officer of the quarter last year, his  choice was easy.

"Prouty came here and swept this place by storm," said Smith. "With him, it's simple. There's nothing he can't do. And I don't mean there's nothing he can't make. He can do anything."

Smith is the supervisor of Master Sgt. Kristopher Prouty, an Aircraft Metals Technology Craftsman, who not only won SNCO of the Quarter, but went on to win 2014 SNCO of the Year for the 476th Fighter Group.

Prouty's responsibilities include repairing and welding aircraft parts as well as programming heavy-duty equipment designed to sculpt pieces from blocks of solid metal.

"I use a lot of trigonometry," explained Prouty, after describing the chemical challenges of welding titanium and other metals.

While most aircraft repairs rely on detailed instructions from thick technical order manuals, Prouty describes what he calls the fun part of his job: designing aircraft repairs for problems that have never been seen before. Troubleshooting is not uncommon, he said, for aircraft that have been active since the 1970s- like his A-10 Thunderbolt IIs that fly out of Moody AFB.

"It's a unique aspect of my job," said Prouty. "I work with key engineers, aircraft designers, when we give input on what we think a repair should be. Anytime we submit an issue we submit a recommended solution design. Ninety-nine percent of the time it's accepted."

For example, several years ago he was part of a team who designed a solution to the problem of heavy wear to the canopy- the clear hatch that covers the pilots' seat- and the proposed solution earned the team ten thousand dollars from the IDEA award.

Prouty was able to extend his creative problem-solving into a recent visit from his commander, Col. James Travis, during a tour of the maintenance shop.

"The commander was intrigued," Smith recalled the colonel's reaction to watching a welding demonstration. "He made a casual statement that he'd like to stop by and try it sometime. We told him, 'anytime, sir.'"

The shop was pleasantly surprised when, during the next Unit Training Assembly, only a month later, the commander took himself off flying status to spend half a day with them.

And they were ready.

"We thought up a project, as a group, that incorporated our jobs," Prouty described. "He wanted to be hands-on and see what we do."

He and Smith copied the design of the A-10 from a technical order, imposed the outline onto metal sheets, trimmed the sheet into different pieces representing the aircraft's engines, wings and body and left the rest to be finished by the colonel.

During the commander's visit, Prouty taught him how to weld using scrap metal.

"We thought he might get bored, but he seemed to really enjoy it," said Prouty, "That was before he even realized what he was making."

Prouty graduated the colonel up to welding the model outline and when the commander began to piece them together he realized what it was.

"It was funny to see his face, when the lights came on and he exclaimed, 'It's an A-10!'" Prouty recalled.

The shop brought out a pre-assembled base and the colonel welded it to the aircraft figure.

"It seemed to mean something to him," said Smith.

A visitor to the commander's office might agree- back shelves are lined with expensive, professional aircraft models. Sitting at arms' length from the visitors' couch, nearest the doorway, is his hand-welded A-10.