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Enthusiast Joined: Jan 28, 2006 Posts: 48

Dealing with all the BS that some new 23 year old zero thinks will get he/she promoted. Most of us were doing this when they were 8 years old!! Or someone/pro sup who thinks the water seperator sock fixes all ECS problems. Or night flying Thursday, and having 0600 crew shows Friday so the pilots have a nice long weekend, obtw reconfig all the jets for the heck of it for Monday.

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Newbie Joined: Jan 30, 2008 Posts: 8 Status: Offline

It's not a hard part to change but the b system pump is a pain. remove the jfs, take the lines off the pump. The damn case drain line.

Safety wiring the cockpit dump valve after an ECS pressure check was always a bear...one night we had a new kid on the job, and when it was wrapped up we told him to do the safety wire. We went back to the truck to get warm and he popped his head in about five minutes later, carrying the toolbox. Incredulous, our E+E 7-level inspected it, and it was good to go. I guess we forgot to tell him it was impossible to do.

Avionics wise, soldering the filters on the interphone amp was always big fun. We did a lot of that at MacDill, when moisture accumulated in the cockpit, especially station wagons. The pilots would have good comm until they made that hard right turn on the way back to the chocks...the water would slosh over the interphone amp and short the whole works out.

Changing the throttle quadrant was something I only did once, and swore never to do again. But there we were at Spang, ready to deploy in three days and there is a bad harness from the throttle grip to the bulkhead. I ordered just the harness, and miracle of miracles, it issued! We pulled the old harness out through the quadrant, taped up all the wires on the new one and attached some safety wire, and pulled it back through. Took the tape off, pinned the wires, put it all back together. At one point, QA asked us where our Tech Order was. We showed them the 00GV-00-2 and they went away.

Best Regards,

Pulling a gun after a jam with live rounds chambered was one that took some creative thinking. We had a EOD guy tell us we needed to cut the bulkhead panel to remove the gun with the barrels still installed. My buddy and I attached a pipe wrench and wanged the barrel till it came loose and free.
The next was wing box replacement. The first time took two days just to remove the wires. After that I started removing a few wafer plugs and was able to slide them in in out in less than 2 hours. We got it down to complete removal in one day and an install the next.

Enthusiast Joined: Feb 14, 2008 Posts: 23 Status: Offline

We canned a Nose Radome once. The funny part was the prosuper expected it to fly by the next day. I guess they forgot to tell him about the AOA boresight that it creates. another ops check that is a pain is an @n "alpha- N" ops check for air data. but that is usually the test equipement not the aircraft

The alpha-N check took about an hour's worth of work to set up and about two minutes to do it. I was never so disappointed in my life as when I did my first one and got to the end of it. "That's all there is to it???" That's a whole lotta work for such a short check!! The FLCS Programmed Gains check was a lot of work but fun--especially when you had to raise the gear handle with hydraulic pressure on the jet and the pins in the gear!

I remember once I installed a wiring harness in the nose of a jet. That harness was about 25 ft long, had about 30 connectors, and ran from panel 1206 (just aft of the ckt bkr panel 1205 right above the intake) all the way up to the radar antenna. The bad thing about this job was that I had not removed the old harness; the guy who did just ripped it out leaving adel clamps hanging on the remaining harnesses, and then went on vacation. Three weeks, one deep laceration in a finger, God knows how many cuss words, and FOD checks by no fewer than seven different people including QA, and the jet flew code 1. The next day, we opened up 1205 for an unrelated problem, dropped the circuit breaker panel, and damned if a stray adel clamp didn't fall out! That was embarrassing.

All this just because some rocket scientist out at Hill Depot left a common screwdriver sitting point down on the wiring harness at the forward inboard corner of the INU and our acceptance people didn't catch it. Of course, neither did Hill's...wonder how that rocket scientist managed to inventory his CTK that day. One of our 3-levels found it. I was proud of him! Unfortunately ,by the time he found the screwdriver several wires had chafed down to the conductors.

On the night of 30 Sep-1 Oct 2001 I worked swing/graveyard shift and had to re-code the entire fleet for SADL, EGI, Secure Voice, Have Quick, and M4 all in the same night. I may be wrong about the EGI; we may not have had it at the time. The SADL was the worst because we had not done the TCTO for the remote fill and had to open up the panels to re code it. I climbed out of one jet and the sun had come up! This was during ONE and before our weekenders, er--oops, traditional guardsmen, had been called up.

Oh I forgot one, trying to find where the Edwards guys cut the gun trigger wire for some of their test bed equipment.
No paperwork no orange wires, nothing but the jet, me and the FI.
Thanks ED Bang Head

Newbie Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 16 Status: Offline

The hardest part of working on the F-16 is... working for a Maint Officer in Aviano that cares about nothing els besides becoming a Lt Col. (You know who you are) "We don't work 12hr shifts on non-flyers,,, unless the squadron FMC rate is below USAFE goals of course." That would not look good on an OPR.

Enthusiast Joined: Dec 10, 2003 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

Working the FLCS Batteries under 1305...
Rate Gyros are a pain but not too bad.
MLG WOW is a Beeotch...
Having arguments with Fuels as to who changes the probes.
Radome swaps suck big time Had one which they wanted to Cann the radome and install it on another bird to prevent it from being hangar queen...Nothing I hate more than doubling my work load...
Always loved the fact that some people never thought that the 10JG step. PROBE HEAT OFF!!! Applied to them. Side Mount AD Probe and the Pitot. Replacements are such fun. Quick grab me that TTU 205 ( the old analog one not the Digital one) and lets do the full ops check...

William G

All the things mentioned are really up there on the scale. But if there can only be one thing.

Replacing a throttle cable. Doh

Made slightly easier if you happen to have someone who has done it before. Bang Head

Newbie Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 13

Try removing a PDU or gun drum from a family model with the rooftop luggage rack (dorsal avionics equipment bays) These were not on a USAF jet but in addition to the regular pains of a PDU removal, you must remove the avionics, ecs ducts and tubes, harnesses, and one small dorsal bulkhead before you can even see the PDU bay cover. The PDU bay is so packed that it takes two people to remove the PDU dipstick. Just another case of engineering trying to stuff 10lbs of *&%^ into a 5 lb bag. Gotta love it!

Enthusiast Joined: Feb 14, 2008 Posts: 23 Status: Offline

SixerViper wrote:

The alpha-N check took about an hour's worth of work to set up and about two minutes to do it. I was never so disappointed in my life as when I did my first one and got to the end of it. "That's all there is to it???" That's a whole lotta work for such a short check!! The FLCS Programmed Gains check was a lot of work but fun--especially when you had to raise the gear handle with hydraulic pressure on the jet and the pins in the gear!

I remember once I installed a wiring harness in the nose of a jet. That harness was about 25 ft long, had about 30 connectors, and ran from panel 1206 (just aft of the ckt bkr panel 1205 right above the intake) all the way up to the radar antenna. The bad thing about this job was that I had not removed the old harness; the guy who did just ripped it out leaving adel clamps hanging on the remaining harnesses, and then went on vacation. Three weeks, one deep laceration in a finger, God knows how many cuss words, and FOD checks by no fewer than seven different people including QA, and the jet flew code 1. The next day, we opened up 1205 for an unrelated problem, dropped the circuit breaker panel, and damned if a stray adel clamp didn't fall out! That was embarrassing.

All this just because some rocket scientist out at Hill Depot left a common screwdriver sitting point down on the wiring harness at the forward inboard corner of the INU and our acceptance people didn't catch it. Of course, neither did Hill's...wonder how that rocket scientist managed to inventory his CTK that day. One of our 3-levels found it. I was proud of him! Unfortunately ,by the time he found the screwdriver several wires had chafed down to the conductors.

On the night of 30 Sep-1 Oct 2001 I worked swing/graveyard shift and had to re-code the entire fleet for SADL, EGI, Secure Voice, Have Quick, and M4 all in the same night. I may be wrong about the EGI; we may not have had it at the time. The SADL was the worst because we had not done the TCTO for the remote fill and had to open up the panels to re code it. I climbed out of one jet and the sun had come up! This was during ONE and before our weekenders, er--oops, traditional guardsmen, had been called up.

Yeah I did a programmed gains check and we told the guy in the cockpit to put the handle up but he left the FLCS in DBU. When he put the handle up with pins installed I have never seen an airplane vibrate so much before in my life. I swear to god it almost shook itself off the jacks. Every time since then I have always been leary of that step in the procedure.

As for depot those people aren't the best. I don't think they inventory their boxes because they are all contractors with their own personal tools. dont quote me on that though. however A guy I worked with at Hill found a breaker bar inside an ISA panel one time it had etching on it so he had the luxury of walking over to depot to find the guy who it belonged too. and still the depot guy really didnt care much. that he left it in the jet. He was more excited that we found his tool he had been looking for.

No, for the most part the mechanics at the depot at Hill are not contractors. That's not to say that there arent some, but for the most part they are civil service employees. BTW they do NOT have their own tools. They get their tits in a wringer when they lose them. They are supposed to inventory their boxes when they change jets, start new jobs and at the end of the day which ever happens first. Lets not throw rocks about tools left in jets......I have horror stories I can tell about the stuff I have found in jets when they get to the depot.

You should be "leary" of that step...the Programmed Gain Checkout does not require the aircraft to be up on jacks. In fact, running flight controls while on jacks is extremely dangerous.

I'm guessing you had a little memory error.

Best Regards,

Enthusiast Joined: Dec 10, 2003 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

Joe,
Who was the CC who in the 14th did a gear swing almost all the time when he could...
Just for Snits and Giggles...

William G

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