Eglin EOD Flight works with munitions from idea to implementation

  • Published
  • By Noel Getlin
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  There are no routine days for explosive ordnance disposal technicians. 

On any given day, technicians may be disabling improvised explosive devices in the Global War on Terror, investigating suspicious packages found in the community or working with a team to recover fingerprints from bombs to identify the terrorist cells that made them. 

They may travel to the work site by helicopter, parachute, Humvee or tank. One day, they may be working with foreign governments, the next day, the CIA, Secret Service or local law enforcement officials. 

The 96th Civil Engineer Group Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight, however, has two additional functions that no other Air Force EOD flight has -- test support robotics and test directives development, or TD. The TD section works with and tracks the development of EOD procedures to support testing of new technology. The two units work in conjunction with each other and support most all test missions at Eglin. 

"One of the things that is unique for Eglin, and especially the EOD team, is the cradle-to-grave concept," said Senior Airman Anthony DeMarino, EOD robotics journeyman. "You can see something from its inception. The explosives themselves, the actual compound -- we see them being made." 

The TD section works closely with the 46th Test Wing, the Air Force Research Laboratory and commercial corporations that work with the Air Force. The development corporations come up with the new technologies, such as fuzes -- the mechanism to trigger an explosive, and submunitions -- bomblets, grenades or mines used as secondary explosives inside a bomb, missile or other delivery device. 

Developers sit down with the EOD TD team and explain what they want to do with the test and what they want to recover, such as cameras or electronics. Whether the test measures velocity, penetration, combustion or all three, the EOD assists with designing the way the explosives are tested. They may use robots to retrieve components of a project. 

"The main goal of robotics is to eliminate the explosive hazards from any test items, whether it be the fuze, submunition or whatever," said Airman DeMarino. "Because with weapons research and development that's done with the Air Armament Center here, the biggest issue with the (scientists) and engineers is they need their components back so they can gather all the data, interpret the data and make adjustments." 

The ability to do failure analysis on recovered items speeds the development process and helps produce more reliable designs. 

The EOD Flight at Eglin is the only flight in the Air Force that has the capability to separate and retrieve munitions components remotely, and because of this, they are sought throughout the research and development world. 

"For instance," said Staff Sgt. Todd Kuikka, NCOIC of robotics, "a customer may say, 'We're planning on sending a penetrating bomb into 10 feet of reinforced concrete. Can you get it out?' So we sit down and come up with a plan of action that we can apply to the test." 

Once the power for the new technology is established, the developers consider the capability the explosive offers and how to proliferate it. It may be used in a guided missile, a bomb or a round. 

EOD technicians in TD are involved with these types of projects from the beginning, even though some projects, like the small diameter bomb, go on for years. 

Staff Sgt. Santiago Lampon, a TD team member, points out that they sometimes get items that haven't been tested before and the only data collected is what the TD team records in their project notes. "So we have to measure every little detail," he said. 

In addition to assisting with tests, retrieving items and writing some of the first data on new technology, the TD team also exploits foreign ordnance. If a foreign munition needs to be tested or taken apart and there aren't any step-by-step procedures on how to do it, the TD team will be the ones to do that. 

Often, they begin by X-raying the internal components of the explosive. The X-ray gives them the ability to look inside the ordnance. 

"You can't just start taking fuzes off of something because there may be an anti-removal function on the fuze," Sergeant Kuikka said. 

The team looks at how the explosive is put together and how it works, and then decides the safest way to take it apart. 

"If they get a bunch of ... let's say Pakistani missiles and they want to figure out how it functions, obviously this team is going to be responsible for figuring out the fuzing and how it functions before they even try to function it," said Sergeant Kuikka. "You can't haphazardly initiate the motor and have it screaming down range. It's not safe." 

But just because the flight supports the Air Armament Center's testing doesn't mean that they aren't deployed like other Air Force EOD flights. EOD technicians are deployed at a high ops tempo. 

This just reinforces the need to keep continuity and meticulous records for the test directive. And once the TD team has seen a project through, sometimes they get to see the end result. 

"It's very unique working on items, supporting the development of it and then seeing it fielded when you get down range," Sergeant Kuikka added. "It's a very unique opportunity that's offered here at Eglin."