Forum: F-16 News

Lots of hard work ... good job guys and gals!

http://www.nellis.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123068711

Salute

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-7726.html

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AND be sure to keep the unsecured briefcases out of the back seat of your D's?
Us engine guys call unsecure stuff like that FOD.... Doh

BTW, I have to say "I told 'em so..." about not having electric throttles on PW aircraft Rolling Eyes

(See forum link above)

SMSgt. Charles Stuart, Tomahawk Aircraft Maintenance Unit lead production superintendent wrote:

"It was the right thing to do, considering the Pratt and Whitney engines that power our F-16s do not have an electronic throttle control backup if the cable breaks."

Great job on all parts, only part I found hard to believe was the quote about supply.

"The required throttle cables and associated hardware were immediately ordered through base supply and thanks to the 99th Logistics Readiness Squadron's outstanding support, they all issued within hours," said Sergeant Stuart

When was the last time your base supply had 12 throttle cables on hand? Maybe in hours he meant like 72?

I thought the same thing about the supply comment. Even if they did happen to have 12 cables on hand, how tough is it really to go to some shelf, pull 12 identical parts off of said shelf and deliver the parts to the maintainers. Sad thing is that they will probably get an achievement medal out of their efforts, while the maintainers will get nothing.

At MacDill we had to inspect and re-rig over 100 jets during an ADX because of a broken cable, didn't make any news ,it's just what we had to do. We broke into crews, panel crew, forms crew, inspect crew, rig crew etc. Seems to me it only took about 14 hrs to get done because the ADX(Air Defense Exercise, A training wings version of an ORI) kept on going.

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

In an emergency or a critical matter like this one I would think you can fly in parts from other bases. I would think the parts could hop a flight if there happens to be an existing flight on the way, in some cases I've heard of special flights dispatched for such deliveries.

I think it is also fairly common to use commercial rush delivery services such as UPS, or FedEx.
Sometimes if you have a particularly large or heavy part at real late hours Delta Dash, has one of the fastest delivery services in the states. I have managed to ship parts out or receive parts that were ordered on the start of a shift, and received before the end of the shift. A typical delivery is usually within 24 hours, within the continental United States at major cities. Delta Dash is very expensive, but it's usually better if time is extremely important, and if you have large or heavy parts. I think parts that are over 70 pounds you have to pick up and deliver to the airport. It's a really good service if Delta serves the start point an endpoint.

I think it's one of the most expensive methods of delivery, but it is fast and often can be done at late hours.
http://www.delta.com/business_programs_ ... /index.jsp

Looks like they've limited the weight to 100 lbs. in the size to 90 inches. I think they used to allow larger and heavier items, but things may have been different back then, and we would call ahead a time and ask if they would take the larger weights and size, so we may have been bypassing the normal rules. I think they charged us a premium on oversize and overweight items. DHL looks like they take bigger and heavier packages, and looks comparable.

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

Okay...ATFS, you are correct. We will use FedEx and UPS. However, just having 12 throttle cables is still the major surprise. Most bases would only have one if any, so for them to come up with 12 means they used many assets. To say they had them all within hours in my opinion is a big stretch. Even once it arrives on base it can still take hours before the flightline troops get it. To top it off they wouldn't even have the highest priority. They are still classified as a training Wing and could only order either 03AA or 02AA. That shows the jet is grounded yet isn't flying a combat sortie. So any jet with a 01AA would still get the part.

Sorry, great story for the maintenance guys, but I don't believe the supply side..........

dup post...... Shocked

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 15, 2006 - 12:28 AM Posts: 760

Purplehaze wrote:

just having 12 throttle cables is still the major surprise. Most bases would only have one if any, so for them to come up with 12 means they used many assets. To say they had them all within hours in my opinion is a big stretch. Even once it arrives on base it can still take hours before the flightline troops get it. To top it off they wouldn't even have the highest priority. They are still classified as a training Wing and could only order either 03AA or 02AA. That shows the jet is grounded yet isn't flying a combat sortie. So any jet with a 01AA would still get the part.

Sorry, great story for the maintenance guys, but I don't believe the supply side..........

I understand your skepticism of having that many throttle cables in stock, however this is part of a safety check/update from an accident, so they've probably going to great effort to insure that you have the throttle cables and the other parts necessary to do the procedure. I suspect that some management/brass arranged for the cables to be on stock or on order before you received your work orders.

I would think if you started a big project like this on a large batch of aircraft that were flyable, that you would do an inventory check and have the parts in stock or on order before you tore down a working airplane.

I suspect the inventory was checked and the parts ordered before the work orders were issued to the line technicians.

I vaguely recall a badly burned brigadier general that gave safety lectures about how his T-33 flamed out shortly after takeoff and crashed and burned in a small stream. By the time he recovered enough to be filled in I think the investigation was done, if I remember correctly they concluded that the flameout was probably a throttle scheduling issue that had caused other flameout's and crashes; there was bulletins issued a new component and a kit to do the modification made available. However the bulletin was sent by snail mail, the parts were manufactured but not distributed or ordered. The bulletin for the safety modification was in the long bureaucracy (red tape) of being implemented. (gathering dust on a desk in an inbox when he crashed)

I think one of the lessons that was learned from the T-33 crash, was to expedite safety modifications.

I agree with your skepticism that you would normally not have that many throttle cables and stock, however there probably was preparations to make sure that there was a reasonable chance you had the parts by the time you are ready to put them on.

Like they say; safety is not an accident.

Okay, first they do not look at parts in supply. If it is an unflyable condition we do not care if we have no parts. Grounded is grounded. This is where the USAF works at it's best. All of supervision does it's best to source and acquire the needed parts and also reschedules all sorties and maintenance to make the big picture work. This effects all sorts of things such as phase inspections and any other type inspection based on flying hours.

I had the great opportunity of being the USAFE F-16/LGMA for 4 months in the 90's. I had almost the final say of aircraft status and we never cared if the part was in supply. Did we ask? Hell yes we asked, but if it was a safety of flight issue we grounded the jet and then tried to expedite getting the part.

Purple

Well there are fewer F-16 units these days so all those spare parts had to go somewhere. I wonder how many came out of the Pro Super's warehouse, you know the one that is above the false ceiling in his office!

In cases like this, the best thing that Supervision can do is:

1. Get the parts
2. Get the resources (people, tools, jets in hangars)
3. Stay the hell out of the way!
4. Give appropriate attaboy when the job is done

The fact that there was an AF News story about this tells you how rare it is that maintainers are left alone to do what they do best. When the fact that people who know what they are doing install parts that were made available from Supply on aircraft that were grounded and completed their work on schedule in minimum time makes news, that tells you the state of affairs in the F-16 maintenance world today.

Not demeaning the troops...to the contrary, this is what all F-16 maintainers are capable of, if given the resources and latitude to do the job. The fact that it was done so quickly means that the decisions were probably made at the lowest level.

Pardon my cynicism...

Best Regards,

vinnie wrote:

Well there are fewer F-16 units these days so all those spare parts had to go somewhere. I wonder how many came out of the Pro Super's warehouse, you know the one that is above the false ceiling in his office!

Wow that does bring back some memory's. When we converted from F-4's to F-16's at Ramstein we found a old 55 gal drum buried behind out behind our support HAS. It was filled with F-4 parts people had hoarded for years. Then when I was in the 429th at Nellis our false ceiling collapsed when we overloaded it prior to our ORI. It's amazing what we would do to get the job done.

You know fellows, what is so sad about this throttle cable thing is that when a cable breaks, it is removed from the aircraft and shipped for further investigation. I don't think an OEM engineer has ever seen a broken cable in the aircraft before it is removed so that he or she could make an assessment as to what is happening to these things in the first place. That F-16 cable is the same cable that who knows has been around for so many years in various configurations an is still the mainstay for throttle cable controls. Knowing that this cable is cross sectioned like an hour glass it doesn't take much bending force to pull it under a 7.0 radius then there goes the material modulus to kink. Then the problem starts. I know that there were programs to try and replace it on the F-16, but USAF didn't want to expend the cost to replace It with a more positive system such as a hybrid fly-by wire with a quad rotary actuator at the engine connected with a wiring harness ( replace cable) to the TPSA ( Switch in cockpit). This was accomplished on 1 F-16 years back a Eglin, for a RPV project. It Did the job past 8000 hrs in the labs ( this what the cable can't beat!).

Forum: F-16 News

Binding throttle fix for Nellis