USAF Jobs; Missile Field Specialties

[Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] this is Mark Hutton from Satellite Beach Florida Mark is married father of two children with his work family and interest in sports he is a busy guy but he also finds time to major in sociology at the University of Arizona at Tucson on the job Sergeant Mark Hutton is an Air Force missile systems analyst specialist I work here in the control center of a Titan 2 ICBM mostly it's a monitoring type job where you run daily checks on the status of the various components associated with a missile it's part of the job of keeping the missile up to strategic alert or in the green as we say one thing I like about this job is the hours 24 on and 48 off some of us go to college or take correspondence courses and the government pays for most of it for me it's an ideal situation we're making an electrical continuity check on all the systems in this remote piloted vehicle we can simulate all the Maneuvers the missile would go through an actual flight climbing diving turning without running up the engine we sent it a command here at the console and then see if it responds correctly if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do we locate the malfunction and repair it then we check it again since this vehicle flies without a pilot and the equipment I work on replaces him I take a personal interest in it just as if it were my own airplane this missile the Quail also operates by remote control with this test stand and console we can simulate actual flight and check its performance quails are launched from b52s and show up on enemy radar just like the bombers do in other words they're decoys designed to draw fire away from the real aircraft most of our work is done in the hanger out of the weather when I think of all the training and Electronics we've had the working conditions and everything well it's pretty hard to beat now we'd like you to meet Tom sortman from Dayton Ohio Tom is married and lives on base once or twice a week he and his buddy take their bikes out on the desert for a little tooling around the brush as they call it besides that Tom also bowls lays handball and baseball joined the Air Force right out of high school 2 and 1/2 years ago on the job sergeant Tom sortman is an Air Force missile systems maintenance specialist in missile maintenance there are several different jobs you might have on any system you're assigned to for the past year I've been calibrating guidance and control systems on the Titan 2 right now we're using this checkout equipment to make sure the missile guidance computer and the inertial measurement unit are properly configured some maintenance people are trained to replace guidance and control units on the missile right in The Silo a real Precision operation maintenance work is pretty much the same regardless of which missile it is checking rechecking tracing down malfunctions of course your test equipment and your training are all first class when we do find a malfunctioning component we simply replace a circuit board or do some other kind of minor repair work [Music] there's a lot of variety in this job pling golf in the high 7s not far from professional status is Steve Nas of Boston [Music] Mass Steve also plays a good game of tennis and builds some of his own Furniture he's married and lives off base on the job Airman for first class Steven ngas is an Air Force missile electronic equipment specialist right now my friend and I are running a check on a unit called the missile fault locator this is a very important piece of equipment in the missile control center for determining if the missile is ready for launch in this career field besides being interesting work you get an excellent background in electronics and also real hands-on experience in troubleshooting complicated equipment something that has tremendous application in civilian light if you ever plan on going in electronics now meet Jim Cole of cost Mesa [Music] California Jim is single in high school he was on the varsity track team in high hurdles and two mile cross country now in his spare time he goes to college majoring in electrical engineering on the job Airman First Class James Cole is an Air Force instrumentation mechanic in this job my co-workers and I are kept pretty busy maintaining the equipment in the satellite tracking station here at Vandenburg Air Force Base in between satellite passes it's our job to check and troubleshoot tracing down problems replacing modules when necessary and when they launched a new bird we're all set and ready for it [Music] our work is put to the test every time a satellite passes over when we're picking up all the information and there aren't any electronic Hang-Ups or bottlenecks we know we've done our job and done it right it's great to be a part of a really sharp outfit do you dig the martial arts meet Walter Johnson holder of a brown Bell in ta kwondo his partner with a black belt works with him in the same career field though they're active in other sports this is their number one favorite Wald attended Howard University before enlisting in the Air Force now in his spare time he's taking a correspondence course in electrical engineering on the job Sergeant Walder Johnson is an Air Force missile mechanic I cross train from aircraft mechanic into the missile mechanic field and was assigned to these remote piloted vehicles or drones as they're called we do the ground handling refueling changing parts and getting them ready for flight the interesting thing about these drones is that they can be launched on a mission do their photography or whatever and then brought back and recovered they pop a shoot and are snatched out of the air by a chopper a fantastic little aircraft for whatever missile you're assigned to large or small it's a good deal as far as I'm concerned well I originally got in the Air Force because I felt that it was an opportunity chance for me to kind of get my head together and learn a skill now when I got in there my first choice was missile mechanic and I got that but right now I feel that it's exactly what I want to do I'm learning something and I'm a part of a team and I have a chance to exert my own individual efforts and feel Integrity you know and pride to Pride in what I'm doing my feeling about the Air Force is that that it teaches you a sense of responsibility and helps to build your character I kind of feel in the future that well they offer a lot of opportunities educational wise in the Air Force and I'm going to take advantage of all those as much as I can you've just seen some of the jobs in missile maintenance if you want to join this group ask your recruiter for more information he'll be glad to help you then make a choice and jump aboard [Music] la [Music]