Posted on 03/01/2023 11:31:51 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
Something was off with a key component used to literally hold many U.S. Air Force aircraft together—and it resulted in the service grounding 207 vital aircraft according to a Time Compliance Technical Order issues in February.
No—it’s wasn’t the Air Force’s numerous F-16 tactical fighters. Nor its new F-35 stealth jets, or venerable B-52 bombers and A-10 ground attack jets.
Foremost, it was the workhorse keeping all of those planes refueled in the sky: the service’s airliner-based KC-135 Stratotanker. It also affected RC-135 and WC-135 surveillance aircraft extensively deployed to monitor the activity and technologies of foreign militaries (particularly China, North Korea, and Russia).
The offending items, first publicly revealed on February 9 in a memo posted onto an unofficial Facebook page associated with Air Force non-commissioned officers, are apparently “non-conforming” vertical pins. Two of these 5-inch pins are used to bear 90 percent of the load fixing the vertical stabilizer (ie. tail fin) on the C-135 family of aircraft. The failure of just one pin therefore would suffice to compromise its load-bearing capacity, causing the entire vertical stabilizer to... “depart the aircraft,” as the memo dryly puts it.
According to the memo, a metallurgical analysis of two “non-conformal pins” supplied by BlueDog Industries found flaws including “incorrect material, undersized dimensions, insufficient plating and lack of shot peening.” All 280 pins were recalled by the Air Force, but unfortunately, some had already been installed.
It took some USAF NCOs reporting on their jobs on Face Book to get this noticed.
Oh, this also affects Rivet Joint aircraft.
50-year old 707s with very high flight-hours. What could go wrong?
They’re losing their asses
Tails might fall off? Reminds me of an old Jimmy Stewart movie in which an eccentric metallurgist (Stewart) is mocked when his predictions of catastrophic failures of airplane tails fails to materialize - until it does (fortunately, while the plane is still on the ground) and he is vindicated.
They got this ass backwards. The KC-135 came first and the 707 "airliner" was born as a spinoff of that project. They were both preceded by the dash 80 prototype.
The 707 was designed with a wider fuselage to accommodate 6 across seating. The KC-135 was designed to make passengers uncomfortable while sitting in the dark over hundreds of gallons of JP-4.
I was a crew chief on the 135. Many YEARS AGO, at Pease AFB and then Castle AFB. Great aircraft. Though I came to absolutely loathe the engine cowlings, when they were fitted with the J-57 engines.
No tail problems that I was aware of back then.
Hmm...that’s a very important part, isn’t it?
“The KC-135 was designed to make passengers uncomfortable”
I slept quite well in my sleeping bag during my travels on a 135R/A model, and it was a better experience than trying to sleep on a BUFF.
Nothing like the smell of burnt JP-4 or 8 in the morning.
CND
One time we flew from Elmendorf to Ramstein in a KC-135 and it was the most miserable flight I've ever been on. Hot above and bitter freezing cold below, as we were flying over the pole. Fortunately it was a one-time deal where there was a crew swapout while our own aircraft remained at Ramstein.
Thought the KC-135’s were being phased out by the C-17’s.
My favorite spot to catch 40 was on one of the the boomers couches. Occasionally uncomfortable with the dutch roll tendency way back there.
Nope, by the KC-46. But the 135 will live on like the Buff, immortal.
TCTO time - ugh.
Mid shift used to have some personnel (not me!) head over to a Phase Dock and sleep in the “hammock” netting in the 135. Always looked uncomfortable to me.
Details:
On Jan. 10, 1964, a B-52H flown by Boeing civilian test pilot Chuck Fisher and his three man crew lost its tail at about 14,000 ft over northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Christo Mountains.
Six hours later, with support from the ground, Fisher successfully performed the first and only Stratofortress‘s tailless landing!
I was on a Griffiss tanker at Offutt, taxiing for takeoff, when the left inboard caught fire. Couldn’t bring the pax stand out because of the fire so all 45 of us plus crew had to shimmy down the crew ladder in the cockpit and run 500 yards away in case she cooked off. Fun times.
Heavens forbid one would be caught with one’s “tail draggin’”.
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