TACLOBAN CITY- An innovation made by the service support unit of the 8th Infantry Division will now guarantee that all of its military vehicles could still remain serviceable despite of their being decades-old.
This after the 8th Forward Service Support Unit (FSSU), whose headquarter is based in Palo town, Leyte and under the command of Lt.Col. Vincent Arnold Dy, developed a hydraulic brake system which are now being applied to 11 military vehicles.
This means, these vehicles are using two brake systems, manual and hydraulic-driven.
The hydraulic-supported brake system was developed by Technical Sgt.Mario Alfie Bagtong, who is the chief mechanic of the FSSU motor pool.
Major Sergio Sabiano, Jr., executive officer of the FSSU-8, said that the new system is a big help to the division’s vehicles.
He said that considering that many of their military vehicles have been acquired by the Armed Forces in the 1960s, the brake system of these vehicles are no longer reliable which are all manually-operated .
Thus, aside from being costly due to repairs every now and then, safety is also being compromised, Sabiano said.
He added that the hydraulic- support brake system could work alongside with the manually- done brake system.
“One of its advantages is that the driver will no longer exert effort to press the brake as it is no longer depended on foot valve,” Sabiano said.
He also said that the materials used by Bagtong in developing the hydraulic-supported brake system could be bought locally unlike the standard ones that they are using.
Thus, maintenance cost is drastically reduced, Sabiano added.
“We hope that this system will also be applied by our FSSU units considering of its advantages,” he said.
FSSU serves as the motor pool of the military organization which is responsible, among others, in the repair and rehabilitation of their military vehicles and other equipment.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
