GROTON, Conn. –
Connecticut is home to some of the United States’ largest military industrial businesses like Sikorsky, Electric Boat, and Pratt & Whitney. However, it’s also home to one of the U.S. Army’s greatest kept secrets, the 1109th Aviation Classification and Repair Depot, or AVCRAD.
This Groton, Connecticut, based facility employs highly skilled uniformed mechanics, as well as some of the industry’s most talented civilian contractors, to refurbish and maintain the U.S. Army’s fleet of rotary wing aircraft.
Unlike field units that are only trained and equipped to conduct basic maintenance on their aircraft, the AVCRAD is capable of stripping a helicopter—whether it’s a UH-60 Blackhawk, a CH-47 Chinook, or an AH-64 Apache—down to its nuts and bolts and rebuild it to factory standard as if it just rolled off the assembly line.
“Generally speaking, there are two levels of maintenance when it comes to Army aviation,” said 1st Sgt. Jarod Meekhoff, a quality control inspector for aircraft and aviation maintenance. “There is field-level maintenance and sustainment level maintenance. We are considered a sustainment level facility in that we can do the highest level maintenance comparable with any Army aviation depot … that being said, the kind of work that we do is highly technical which is why we have a lot of specialized tools, equipment, and specialized individuals here with the knowledge and skills capable of doing that.”
This is a vitally important capability for the Army, as refurbishing an aircraft saves the Department of Defense and, in turn, the U.S. taxpayer millions of dollars every year.
“In doing depot maintenance, we can basically take an aircraft and overhaul it from the ground up,” said Meekhoff. “That’s removing all the components, stripping all the paint, doing significant structural upgrades, structural repairs, component repairs, [and] component overhauls.”
One of the best examples of this cost saving capability came in 2019 when the AVCRAD received two battle damaged CH-47 that were deemed severely damaged and inoperable. In just two years—even with the constraints put on by the COVID-19 pandemic—these two helicopters were stripped down, analyzed, repaired, and sent back to the fleet with a brand new paint job as fully-functioning machines, sparing the military millions of dollars to buy new helicopters.
Holding ISO 9000:2015 and AS 9110 certifications qualifies the AVCRAD to bid on special aviation maintenance projects offered by the Army. This allows the soldiers and contractors at the facility to develop skills and knowledge comparable to their counterparts in the civilian defense industry.
The AVCRAD holds ISO 9000:2015 and AS 9110 compliant, which allows the facility to bid on any aviation overhauls the Army is putting forward for contract work. This allows the Soldiers and contractors working at the AVCRAD to gain skills and knowledge that put them on par with civilian agencies, such as the defense contractors mentioned earlier.
All of this high-level depot maintenance, in conjunction with the technical training the Army provides its aviation mechanics, working at the AVCRAD creates an incredible opportunity for young men and women who’re interested in working in the aviation or aerospace industries to acquire skills and experience that will help feed their career in the civilian sector following their military career.
“Because of the level of maintenance and the kind of very technical maintenance that we do, our maintainers will walk away with a much better understanding of not just helicopters and aircraft, but general maintenance and procedures which absolutely translate to all the civilian companies that do any sort of production, manufacturing, or assembly,” said Meekhoff. “But they’re not going to take a brand new person with no experience and hire them at $75-$80,000 a year … what we will do is take that brand new person, we will train them, put them through all the professional development they need to be technically competent in their job.”
In addition to the AVCRAD, the Groton facility is also home to the 1109th Theater Aviation Support Maintenance Group, or TASMG, which is the traditional National Guard unit of which many of the uniformed personnel at the AVCRAD are also a member. These Soldiers are capable of going down range and performing this high-level depot maintenance on aircraft that are on the front lines of the United States’ efforts to maintain peace and stability across the globe.
To learn more about the 1109th AVCRAD and TASMG, visit the Connecticut National Guard’s website at [https://ct.ng.mil/Units/Major-Separate-Commands/1109th-TASMG/](https://ct.ng.mil/Units/Major-Separate-Commands/1109th-TASMG/)