CE Group's Record Drawings team uses pinpoint engineering to support base's many missions

  • Published
  • By Bryan Ripple
  • 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  The 88th Civil Engineering Group's Record Drawings team provides critical facility and installation management information to the base commander in support of the various missions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

No matter if it's the immediate display of a building's floor plan for first responders who must enter a facility when an alarm drops, or pinpointing on a map the exact location of human remains or damage in the wake of a natural disaster or attack, or simply a 'call before you dig' situation before planting a tree on base, accuracy is of the utmost importance. The safety of base personnel is always of utmost concern.

Operating from their offices in the basement of Building 11 in Area A, the team is a diverse unit that requires knowledge of many disciplines of engineering. In a three-year revolving timeline, the team visits virtually every building on the installation because of new construction, space changes within buildings, and other various activities. According to Jason Combs, an engineering technician and lead surveyor with the team, they even maintain drawings of the installation from when it was first established, and work with local communities when needed for various surveying projects and support.

"We have three main duties as part of our mission," said Combs. "We support the overall mission of Wright-Patterson through surveying, record keeping, and updating the base landscape by taking in new projects and updating the database using design software."

The team uses Global Positioning System technology that provides real-time, highly accurate positioning of any given point in a moment of time, referred to as an epoch in the engineering and survey communities. According to www.gps.gov, the GPS is a U.S.-owned utility that provides users with positioning, navigation, and timing services. The system consists of three segments: the space segment, the control segment, and the user segment. The U.S. Air Force develops, maintains, and operates the space and control segments.

Combs said that GPS allows engineers to depict on maps in Geographical Information System software, the spatial reference of objects on the Earth. It is also used in land surveying for quick locations of land features, buildings, etc. Features measured with GPS can be displayed on maps and in geographic information systems that store, manipulate and display geographically referenced data. Basic operations include layering different features of separate maps all within the same region through a process called geo-mapping, which is a visual representation of the geographical location of land features layered on map or satellite imagery.

This is all important because it allows base engineers to access a single site to view many different aspects of the base, including utilities and building floor plans. It is updated regularly to be current with the ever-changing landscape of the base, accounting for new and demolished buildings.

"It is also great for planning purposes and design," said Combs. "The road to success is always under construction, and remember it's all relative."

In addition, the team was also recently called upon to support disaster recovery efforts during a base exercise scenario concerning the touchdown of a tornado on base resulting in many personnel fatalities in the storm's path.

"The team was able to accurately pinpoint on a map layer in GIS, the exact coordinates of storm victim remains and other property damage and print a color map for the incident commander depicting the exact coordinates of this information which significantly aided in recovery operations," Combs said.