Posted on 08/23/2005 6:55:36 PM PDT by SandRat
CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Aug. 22, 2005 — Day in and day out, aviation brigade aircraft are taken apart for routine “phase” maintenance or to handle problems that come up in daily operation. After looking at an aircraft that’s been taken apart into what looks like a million pieces on a hangar floor, and then put back together, it can take a special breed of pilot willing to be the first one to take it out for a spin.
“There's no boredom with this job. It's taxing, mentally and physically, but there's something new every day.”
U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Joseph B. Shorts
In 1st Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment (Attack Reconnaissance), 3rd Infantry Division, that job is handled by the maintenance test pilots.
Being a test pilot requires quite a bit of experience in the aircraft, as well as additional training at Fort Rucker, Ala. A pilot who wants to go through the course at Fort Rucker must have at least 550 hours of pilot in command time, said U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Joe A. Laucius, A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment (Attack Reconnaissance), but “usually, successful (maintenance) pilots have a bit more time than that.”
The four-month course is “the most demanding flying course, without a doubt,” Laucius added.
Actually figuring out what’s wrong with a particular aircraft is a big part of a maintenance test pilot’s job, said Chief Warrant Officer Joseph B. Shorts, A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment (Attack Reconnaissance).
A pilot may bring Shorts an aircraft and a list of “symptoms,” leaving it up to Shorts to figure out exactly what’s wrong.
Pulling out the logbook is the first step, since crew chiefs record details of every flight.
“The big thing is…going through the troubleshooting procedure,” said Shorts, originally from Cherry Point, N.C. “We’ll figure out what’s wrong by what we know, what the book says, what the other guys around you know.”
For general maintenance questions, the pilots look in the interactive electronic technical manual. After figuring out the general scope of a problem, the test pilots dig a bit deeper into other technical manuals.
“There’s a lot of information, and knowing where to find that information is about 60 percent of the battle,” said Laucius.
Other aircraft personnel use more of “an operator’s manual,” said Shorts, but the books they use are the “how it’s built manuals.”
After any maintenance is finished on a particular helicopter, Shorts and Laucius take that Apache out on a test flight. Depending on the level of work, or how well the maintenance went, that flight may be done in a day.
After major maintenance, the test flights can take more time.
”When they take everything apart and then put it back together, you inevitably find something wrong,” said Laucius. “To get (the helicopter) back to flying status, you have to troubleshoot a bunch of things along the way.”
Since the Apache is designed as a weapon platform, maintaining stability and smoothness, both in a hover and in flight, are important to the overall performance of the aircraft.
“Lots of vibration will cause excessive wear,” said Laucius.
“Rotor smoothing”-making sure the rotor blades don’t move up or down more than three-tenths of an inch during flight-is a big part of the test pilot’s job, too. Both time-consuming and precise, rotor smoothing is important to the health of the aircraft, said Laucius, a Bethel, Conn., native.
Being able to see the big picture is part of the training for a maintenance pilot, he added. “We can diagnose the symptoms and let the mechanics treat the problem.”
“We’re kind of like crew chiefs on the enlisted side of the house,” said Laucius. “We may not be trained in the ‘remove the fuel pump task’ or know every task the crew chief knows, but we know what makes it work, and why it wouldn’t work.”
In a demanding and technical job, maintenance pilots can put in long days, depending on the work flow of each company. The maintenance plan on a particular aircraft will also determine how long a day is.
“If you have aircraft down, you do whatever you have to do to get the aircraft up and flying-everything that’s humanly possible,” Shorts said.
Both Laucius and Shorts said staying busy makes the time go faster.
“I’m a little tired,” said Laucius, on his second deployment after a tour to Korea, “but we’re flying a lot and I like the problem solving and the maintenance.”
Maintenance is a constant, Shorts said, since you can always fine tune and improve on an aircraft. “There’s no boredom with this job. It’s taxing, mentally and physically, but there’s something new every day.”
When I was in the navy stationed at whiting field, FL. I used to go out with the maintanance pilots after they fixed the H57's. Basically they were test flying them to make sure that the problems had been fixed.
I'm alot smarter now ;)
BTTT!!!!!!!
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