Spray maintainers keep mission going

Air Force Reserve Staff Sgt. Thaddeus Root, a 910th Airlift Wing Aerial Spray Maintainer, checks the contents in a tank of the Modular Aerial Spray System (MASS) on the cargo deck aboard a modified C-130H Hercules tactical cargo aircraft, assigned to the 910th based at Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio, on the flightline here in preparation for an aerial spray sortie, March 17, 2015. Root and other members of the 910th’s Aerial Spray Maintenance Flight are loading the aircraft’s MASS with a herbicide which was sprayed over the nearby Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), eliminating unwanted ground covering weeds which can obscure target sites and Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) on bombing ranges. The 910th Airlift Wing is home to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) only large-area fixed wing aerial spray capability and dedicated aerial spray maintenance flight.