Attention to detail at its finest

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Emerson Nuñez
  • 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  Attention to detail is essential in any career field, but for nondestructive inspection technicians, what they do on a daily basis is critical to ensure multimillion-dollar aircraft are able to stay in the air.

NDI Airmen are tasked with ensuring aircraft and weapons systems parts are structurally safe with no damage, flaws, heat damage or stress fractures.

"Our purpose is to inspect aircraft for defects without completely having to deconstruct them," said Staff Sgt. Logan Nutter, 48th Equipment Maintenance Squadron NDI shift supervisor. "We save a lot of time and money with our inspections."

NDI technicians perform five different types of inspections - x-ray, ultrasonic, eddy current, magnetic particle and penetrant - to ensure aircraft components don't malfunction in the middle of a flight.

"When we inspect, we can find tools or equipment that might have been left inside of an intake before it flies to prevent it from being ingested into an engine, which could potentially cause the aircraft to fall out of the sky," Nutter said.

The NDI shop can also detect when there is too much wear on aircraft parts by collecting oil off the components and having a machine analyze how the oil burns. With this technique, total engine loss can be prevented by making crew chiefs aware if there are two components that are wearing against each other too much.

"My favorite part of this job is that I get to do a lot of things most people don't do on a regular basis," said Senior Airman Jessica Salinas, 48th EMS NDI journeyman.

"I think it's one of the nicer jobs in working with aircraft and I like working with things people haven't heard of like the magnetic particle unit. I think that's the coolest inspection in the world," Salinas added.