“In my 20 years of working on these planes, I’ve never removed a tail before,” said Gregory, who is a crew chief assigned to the 139th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.
The damaged structure could not be found in the Air Force supply system, so the maintainers had to fabricate it themselves. That involved creating a metal structure from scratch including a die, or mold, of the structure they needed to create. Once the dies were made, the extrusion [metal] had to be softened, bent in the dies, and then re-hardened to finish the part.
“We never have to worry about fixing anything because their expertise is phenomenal,” said Senior Master Sgt. Terry Ramseier, the fabrication section supervisor, referring to the maintainers.
Ramseier said the tail came off flawlessly. The tail remained off for a week allowing the maintainers to fabricate and install the part.
“Really proud of these guys, they did a great job,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 02.15.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.15.2017 09:22 |
| Story ID: | 223598 |
| Location: | SAINT JOSEPH, MO, US |
| Web Views: | 45 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Maintainers remove aircraft ‘tail’ for first time, by Michael Crane, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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