The construction of the new Compact Item Repair shop building will allow for Kineto Tracking Mount (KTM) operators and maintenance crews to work under one very large roof.
Up until now they were divided by Highway 95, working out of two buildings on separate cantonments of Yuma Proving Ground (YPG).
The newly constructed building will bring the two groups together. “All the operators and maintenance crews will be under the same roof so if something goes wrong they will all be right there,” explains Steven Taylor, with the engineering support branch adding, “It will be great to have them operating under the same roof.”
KTM’s play in important role at YPG, “The KTMs support a lot of air drops providing video data as well as time space position information, direct fire as well as indirect fire. Once of the largest efforts they support and will continue to support is the long range precision fire cross-functional tests” explains Taylor.
The Maintenance crew had been in previous building since 1993 but the building was not built to their needs it started out in 1955 as a motor pull building then the rigger shop for Air Delivery.
The ball starting rolling with the new building when a request for funding was submitting in 2013. The funding was approved in 2019 and construction stared in June 2019. The original completion date was scheduled for early 2020, but the COVID epidemic caused a delay.
Now that the building is complete, it has a lot to offer, starting with basic protection from the extreme Yuma weather. The building features two large pull-through bays which have enough room for two trucks and trailer systems. This was not possible in the past, Taylor said.
“With the former facility the best they could do was pull the KTM trailer into the bay, but the actual truck that pulls the KTM couldn’t fit into the bay for shade. This new building provides two huge bays so they can pull the truck and trailers in and work on them simultaneously.”
The building is equipped with a 10 ton remote-controlled crane to work on KTM pedestals and other heavy equipment. It features a Small Optics room for work on optical equipment with four state-of-the- art soldering stations with exhaust fans. There is also an office and conference area. “There’s lot of nice things for both parties.”
Additionally, the Electro-Optical Mechanical (EOM) lab is next door to assist with any specialty work. “They do a lot of the cabling and some of the more difficult soldering and development work. The EOM Lab will be able to help them out. Plus the EOM lab works on the machinery and bracketing. Their location is excellent.”
In all, the building will be able to accommodate the fleet of KTM and field systems adding up to nearly 40 pieces of equipment plus about 30 employees will work out of the building, which boasts 9,000 square feet: 5,200 square feet of shop area, and 3,800 square feet of office area.
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