Our Stellar Work on the Constellation
Summer 2003
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Customer Quote... |
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"Whatever the fleet needs, the (AMSEC) team's ability to react is superb, exceptional." - Dale Cloutier |
When F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats catapulted off the flight deck of the USS Constellation during the Iraq war, they carried 2,000-pound "bunker busters" and other precision-guided bombs to strategic targets in Baghdad, which helped topple Saddam Hussein's Government in five weeks.
Before the war started, two SAIC AMSEC professionals and a Navy program manager rushed to the Persian Gulf to make emergency repairs on the two-and-one-half-ton elevator that lifts such bombs up to the flight deck.
Rotator static and sparks were shooting out of the elevator's main hoist motor jeopardizing the weapons loading process, recalled Dale Cloutier, program manager with COMNAVAIRPAC. "For an aircraft carrier, if you can't get the weapons to the aircraft, there's no sense in being there," he said.
Although damage was more extensive than originally thought, Cloutier and AMSEC technicians Ron Shepard and Greg Fiske had the weapons elevator running in five days. Before installing a temporary replacement motor, Shepard and Fiske first had to cut holes in the ship's bulkheads and lift the defective motor 30 feet. "It was done quick and it was done right," remembers Cloutier.
The impact of AMSEC's work was such that within a day of the military operation's start, the chief of the Constellation weapons department, Chuck Statton, sent an e-mail to Cloutier praising the performance of the main weapons elevator (and a secondary elevator that the AMSEC staff had also repaired).
"I know you guys are probably watching the news as I am writing this. I can't say thank you enough," wrote Statton. "You and every one of the outstanding professionals there on your crew should feel very proud of the fact that you guys have done your part in helping us end this repressive regime."
"Our elevators are running like champs," he went on. "Please take a minute and give yourselves a pat on the back. If I were there I'd do it."
Cloutier had his own words of praise for the AMSEC employees. "The [AMSEC team's] response was spectacular. From the time we got the message to the time we were over there to effect repairs was less than a week, which is remarkable to say the least. But this group is used to doing these things. I am really pleased with their performance."
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