By Jeff Mullin, Senior Writer

If a shade tree auto mechanic needs a starter for a 1994 Buick, he or she can go to a local auto parts store.

But if one of the aircraft technicians at Vance Air Force Base needs a starter for one of the 71st Flying Training Wing’s 49 T-1A Jayhawks (which range in age from 14 to 20 years), where do they turn?

The Vance T-1 Contractor Operated and Maintained Base Supply, or COMBS, warehouse.

The expansive warehouse, housed in Vance’s Bldg. 174, is a treasure trove containing every part one would need to build an entire T-1A, save for the fuselage and wings.

The building is dominated by row upon row of shelves that stand taller than most men and contain bins filled with thousands of tiny parts.

“It’s about 6,000 line items,” said Karla Herring, in charge of inventory data control for L3 Communication Vertex Aerospace, the contractor tasked with supplying T-1 parts at Vance. “It’s everything from the tiniest little washer to a (1,040-pound) jet engine, and everything in-between.”

“The only thing we don’t supply is petroleum products,” said Ray Reynolds, L3 Vertex T-1 COMBS manager at Vance, “no fuels or oils or paint or solvents. Other than that, anything it takes to put the T-1 together, we’ve got. It’s all right here in this building.”

Keeping track of that inventory is not a job for the disorganized. Every part is counted, cataloged and placed in its assigned bin, or in the case of large parts like tires and jet engines, in the designated area of the warehouse.

“We are very well organized,” said Rey-nolds. “There is, actually, a place for everything, even our documents to track the parts’ movement from one bin to another and to another location.”

Parts are moved prior to being picked up by whoever requests them. All parts must be picked up by whoever requests them, since the COMBS warehouse does not deliver. Every time a part is moved it is tracked and its new location recorded.

“You have to do that in order to keep track of exactly where the part is,” Reynolds said, “just so we can tell, at a glance, where we are with any part. You have to be that well-organized in order to keep the kind of rate that we do.”

From January until this month, Reynolds said, Vance’s T-1 parts warehouse has an average Non Mission-Capable Supply rate of 0.48 percent. That means Vance’s T-1s are grounded for want of a part only 0.48 percent of the time. The minimum rate acceptable under the contract is 3.0 percent.

“That is awesome,” said Reynolds. “We strive to be the best in the command and I believe that we are.”

“We strive to make a better percentage of the rest of them with downed aircraft,” Herring said. “That’s all part of doing what it takes to get that extra oomph to keep them flying.”

Paperwork follows each part processed through the COMBS warehouse, but the information is stored on computers, as well.

When many larger parts, such as instruments or en-gines, are removed from an aircraft, they are sent off for repair or overhaul, some to L3 Vertex’s headquarters in Madison, Miss., and others to the part’s manufacturers. The people in the Vance T-1 parts warehouse know how many flying hours each of these 382 different parts has.

“We can tell you how many landings and hours that part’s got on it,” Reynolds said.

T-1 COMBS employees also track the shelf life of smaller parts, such as rubber O rings, that can dry out over time and outlive their usefulness.

Parts must be regularly removed from the aircraft and overhauled — every 1,000 flying hours for a starter, 4,500 hours for an engine, for instance.

“The history continues to build from day one on every serialized component,” said Herring. “We can tell you which aircraft it’s been on, which aircraft it’s been off, how long it was on each aircraft.”

When an aircraft technician needs a part for a T-1, a call is placed to the COMBS parts phone. If the part is in the warehouse, the technician is told to come pick it up. If not, an order is placed in order to get the part to Vance as soon as possible.

If a part containing a serial number is replaced, the COMBS employees ship it off to be repaired or overhauled. Trucks constantly are coming and going from the warehouse’s loading dock.

“You have to get parts back in here before the next telephone call,” Herring said.

L3 Vertex has the T-1 COMBS contracts for Randolph AFB, Texas; Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.; Columbus AFB, Miss.; and Laughlin AFB, Texas. Parts often are sent between the various warehouses.

“If we didn’t have or parts on hand, we’d get them from a sister site if it was available,” said Herring. “We share and we ship them out overnight to support each other.”

Every part is counted, by contract, once a year, Reynolds said, but inventory is conducted much more often than that. Every time a part is ordered and pulled from the bin, “we count the remaining quantity,” said Herring. “We have to stay on top of it.”

There is a similar COMBS operation for T-6A parts at Vance, also manned by L3 Vertex, albeit under a separate contract. Most parts of the T-38s at Vance come from government sources.