Unique Aircraft Repair Saves Millions

It was a long time in coming, but the repair of an F-16 damaged in an accident at Utah's Hill Air Force Base in December 2000 will ultimately save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Originally in for depot modifications to extend the life of the aircraft, the Virginia ANG Fighting Falcon experienced an involuntary gear retraction during a test flight. The landing gear collapse resulted in the aircraft skidding down the runway on its gear doors, ventral fins and airframe... resulting in substantial damage.

"Initially we were going to rebuild the intake and replace the keel beam and two bulkheads," said Master Sgt. Ron Zipperer, the 649th Combat Logistics Support Squadron production dock chief. The team acquired an intake from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center in Tucson, AZ.

There was a problem, though: it didn't align with the fuselage. The team determined that the fuselage had been twisted in another accident.

"It took eight months to design another fix," Sergeant Zipperer said. "Between the F-16 Systems Program Office engineers and the CLSS, it was decided a new forward fuselage would be mated to the center and aft fuselage of the damaged aircraft."

The challenge facing the 649th was finding a donor fuselage, plus the general complexity of the project. "An aircraft had never been split at the 243 bulkhead and rebuilt after a crash," said Sergeant Zipperer, adding that there were plenty of skeptics for their plan.

Given the nature of the challenge, Hill's CLSS was the only unit in the Air Force remotely capable of such a repair. It's the only squadron with an active crash-damage repair program.

"Our CDR program, coupled with our unique heavy depot-maintenance experience, our relationship with F-16 SPO engineers, and the F-16 production fixtures that we procured specifically for this kind of task enable us to repair F-16s that would otherwise be retired from the inventory," said 1st Lt. Josh Holmes, the squadron depot maintenance flight commander.

After finding a donor fuselage at Tucson's AMARC, the team of structural maintenance technicians, crew chiefs, electricians and fuels specialists worked -- when priorities allowed -- on the jet for the next five years.

The twist: the team had to use a Navy aggressor F-16 fuselage with the damaged aircraft.

But it was taken as a personal challenge by members of the squadron and the 309th Aircraft Maintenance Group, who eventually pieced together what could be viewed as a Frankenstein-like, air-worthy aircraft. The work saved $32 million in taxpayer dollars by keeping the aircraft in commission.

"There were a lot of components removed from the aircraft, including the fuel system, wheel wells and the entire environmental control system was removed," said Steve Johns, the 309th AMXG F-16 section chief. "We've had aircraft generation mechanics, electricians, fuels specialists and structures people working on it for about eight months to put it all back together again.

"The wiring was the most challenging part of it for us," Mr. Johns said. "But Terry (Johansen), my aircraft electrician, did a super job on it."

Initially, the wiring was rolled up and just stuck into sections of the aircraft, awaiting proper installation.

"We were presented with a challenge and everyone contributed to the solution," Lieutenant Holmes said. "Now, five years after the accident, we are preparing to return the $32 million asset back to the warfighter -- the Virginia Air National Guard."

In addition to saving taxpayers a lot of money in the long run, there's another possible advantage of the program: since the aircraft hasn't been flying for the last few years, it will return to Virginia with quite possibly the lowest number of flight hours in their F-16 inventory.

(Aero-News thanks G.A. Volb, Ogden Air Logistics Center Public Affairs)

FMI: www.af.mil