AF grounds -135 fleet over minor flaw
yeah, seems the tail, aka the “vertical stabilizer” for we earth-bound types, can literally fall off the airplane. Not something I am guessing you want to have happen in mid-flight, eh? Did I say ‘Minor flaw’? I lied.
Air Force Materiel Command, which does logistics support for the service, said in a press release Wednesday that flight operations were being stopped for KC-135 Stratotanker refueling planes, RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance planes and WC-135 Constant Phoenix radiation detecting jets as it investigates their tail pins. The stand-down encompasses more than 400 aircraft in total, according to service fact sheets about the planes.
As of Feb. 12, two days prior to the formal inspection order, 90 aircraft had been inspected, and 24 were found to have the faulty pins.
The tail-pin inspection takes about 30-minutes. If a faulty pin is found, aircraft “will be authorized a one-time flight to a repair location” to have it replaced, the command wrote. Most of that work will be done at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex. The repair typically takes less than a day, according to Air Force Material Command.
In a nutshell, seems the whole vertical stab (that’s the fixed vertical part of the tail which the rudder swings on per Google) is held in place by pins and what they are finding is that a fair amount of planes have pins installed which are undersized and made from inferior metal…basically, counterfeit parts. I know in the car world this is an ongoing problem – fasteners marked as Grade 5 or Grade 8 which ain’t, out of spec replacement parts… and I would bet cash green money that we will eventually find that somewhere in the supply chain someone ordered these pins from a supplier who had the parts made offshore, and didn’t sufficiently quality-inspect the resultant parts. The Quality lads say you can’t inspect in quality. But as Ronald Reagan repeated (no, he didn’t coin it – ironically it’s an old Russian phrase) “Trust, but verify.” Repair depots, especially in critical applications like aircraft parts, can NOT trust that their suppliers will be perfect and need to check incoming parts before installing them on a plane.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force, Government Incompetence
Glad the “oops” was found before “DAMNED!” press release had to be released.
I witnessed a C-47 mishap where the rudder became detached
at the top as it flew overhead. I assume that is held by a pin of
some sort. It flopped back and forth still attached at the bottom.
Sad ending.
That’s it….I told ’em…you gotta use SAFETY PINS! But did they listen to ol’ Mark? Fuck no.
Just in… Biden makes surprise visit to Ukraine:
https://www.wkbn.com/hill-politics/biden-makes-surprise-trip-to-ukraine-to-meet-with-zelensky/amp/
Hey, the Big Guy is picking up HIS 10% in person. He doesn’t trust that loser kid, Hunter, with that kind of scratch.
Let’s see…$100 Billion to Ukraine, and 10% of that is $10,000,000,000 (the zeros make it seem worse).
A nice payday for the MOST CORRUPT, and incompetent person ever to sit in the White House…
But, yeah…Orange Man Bad!!!
Eff all those sheep that wanted him out…eff them in the ass!!!
But he can’t be bothered to visit East Palestine.
He checked his donor list and the list from Hunter’s “Art” sales… no $ from there so it was a big NOPE.
He WAS trying to find his way to the East Wing…
Were said parts MADE IN CHINA and made their way into the supply chain via bribes?
Probably got them from Ebay.
24 out of 90, so far, with bad pins. That’s pert near 25%. In a just world, the perps of this sabotage would be found and prosecuted for attempted murder.
Staked down and the faulty pins shot at them.
Military sabotage. Treason, I believe.
And would that prosecution, conviction, and hanging not encourage others to refrain?
More of the lowest bid conundrum rearing it’s head. How much you wanna bet that china is the source of the faulty parts?
One of my kids used to work at an auto parts electronics company that sourced stuff from China. They literally had a factory that all they did was test every component. The dud rate was over 60%. They would just throw it all in a box and ship it back for credit. It was still cheaper than making it here.
A friend of mine from high school once worked at a manufacturing facility for a major outdoors brand and for a while they had crews doing nothing BUT destroying inferior parts made in China.
What the Hell?
When the FAA did an audit of airplane parts and their inspection certifications after the Partnair Flt 394 crash in 1989 they found counterfeit parts for Air Force One.
This should not be happening.
Actual enforced penalties are insufficient to deterr.
Putting businesses, even nations, on the “no way” list might help. Hanging the perps would also.
In the late 90s as we were taking delivery of the first couple E-8 JSTARS (P1, P2, P3) they discovered that the bench stock rivets used at the assembly location had proper strength rivets mixed with “soft” rivets. While they were sorting through the issue they altitude restricted the aircraft so that the delta pressure between cabin pressure and the outside air pressure were within a specific range. They proceeded to test all the rivets and as long as too many “soft” rivets weren’t adjacent to each other they didn’t replace them.
“Hey Airperson, don’t forget to grease the shaft!”
I watch ADS and haven’t seen any appreciable downtick in dash135-type activity so it be presumable they’re making light work of it.
Pretty sure the USAF Corporation won’t let the average service members’ tennis game get but only so bad, so…
I’m only jealous of the towel service and hand squeezed lemonade in the Palmers.