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JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C.— It’s a dark night on the flightline. Vehicles dart back and forth bringing tools and maintainers from one aircraft to another or back to their respective shops. On one of the lines ends, a transient C-17 Globemaster III from McChord Air Force Base, Wash., sits bathed in orange light from the giant sodium vapor lamps that surround the line. Behind it, three maintainers are setting up to begin their nights work.
Tech. Sgt. Brian Carroll, 437th Maintenance Squadron hydraulics specialist, leads a crew consisting of Staff Sgt. Mark Rippy, 315th Maintenance Squadron air reserve technician hydraulics specialist, and Senior Airman Skyler Ayers, 437th Maintenance Squadron Repair and Reclamation Flight crew chief, in troubleshooting a flight control malfunction discovered during an operational check on the aircraft after landing here Jan. 25, 2016.
The maintenance crew checked to confirm matching part numbers on a component that could be causing the flight controls to move without command, leading to a potentially catastrophic condition in flight if the pilot is unable to control the aircraft.
“The aircraft was discovered to have a fault in the left inboard tail elevator, a flight control surface,” Carroll said. “While running an operational check letting go of the control stick led the left inboard elevator surface to oscillate, it would keep moving on its own. This is an incredibly dangerous fault in the aircraft; it means the movement in flight could be unpredictable, which is an unacceptable hazard.”
To troubleshoot the problem, the fault isolation guide tells the hydraulics specialists to focus on a specific group of components located under the tail. The crew has to use a Condor lift to reach underneath the tail of the aircraft, almost three stories in the air.
“We went step by step working with other specialist shops,” Carroll said. “They completed most of the fault isolation before getting to a point where it needed to be turned over to us. For our specialty the fault isolation guide tells us to verify that all the integrated flight control modules part numbers are the same, if they are not we have to remove and replace them.”
With the aircraft due to launch for a mission overseas, the rare malfunction lead to a challenging task for the maintenance crew.
“In five and half years of working on the flightline here I’ve only seen this problem maybe three times,” Rippy said. “It’s a very serious issue. We aren’t sure why its oscillating like it is. Troubleshooting is often challenging, we will go by the fault isolation guide and it will tell us to change a part but with hydraulics there could be air in the lines or it could be a pressure issue, and we will spend hours changing a part and it won’t fix the issue and well keep chasing it down for maybe a day or more.”
In addition to their task’s challenges, the lack of manpower currently in the hydraulics flight is piled upon the mechanical issues of removing the panels.
“Tonight is really the biggest example of the challenges we face, we had some people call off this evening, so it’s just one other hydraulics specialist apart from myself,” Carroll said. “We had to scrounge around the different shops to find another troop to help us out. There were stuck screws, there are always stuck screws. Some of the easiest tasks turn out to be the most time consuming and difficult because of a stuck screw. There are always going to be challenges somewhere down the line. You’ve just got to adapt and overcome, you’ve just got to figure out a way.”
After the panels are removed and part numbers confirmed, Carroll determined the integrated flight control module needed to be changed. The maintainers pack up their gear and head back to the shop to order the part and hopefully fix the aircraft so it can fulfill its mission.
“I get a huge sense of satisfaction knowing that I’ve fixed an airplane and it is flying again,” Carroll said. “Because of my efforts, because of the team’s effort to fix it, this aircraft will be able to fly and complete its mission.”
| Date Taken: | 01.25.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.22.2016 11:26 |
| Story ID: | 189601 |
| Location: | SC, US |
| Web Views: | 49 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Joint Base Charleston maintainers work through the night, by MSgt Gregory Brook, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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