Managing maintenance with many maintainers

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Cynthia Spalding
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Airmen of the 3rd Maintenance Squadron, 3rd Wing, joined their various job skills to complete one common mission, the home station check, the week of Oct. 11.
An HSC is an in-depth, four-day scheduled inspection of a C-17 Globemaster III.
Each aircraft is sent in for an HSC every 180 days.

Quality assurance personnel also come out to inspect the work being done by the maintainers.

HSC is a big part of the mission.It is the behind-the-scenes maintenance checks that can lead to savings in time and money, but it can also save lives, maintainers said.

"Your body may be working right on the outside, but like a doctor checks your insides, the purpose of HSC is to check the insides of the engines, the guts of the jet," said Robert Hopkins, a retired Air Force service member, working for Boeing as a recovery aircraft maintenance specialist.

One type of inspection done during an HSC is the bore-scope inspection.

This is where the maintainers look at the turbine blades and combustion chambers.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Colin Brown, aerospace propulsion lead technician for 3rd MXS HSC shop, described one instance where during this inspection, they found three cracks in the engines.

If these cracks had not been discovered, the problem could have led to a catastrophic engine failure or worse, a fatal accident could occur from engine combustion.

"We are like the Jiffy Lube of the Air Force. We change oil, filters, and tune up the engines and provide any immediate maintenance needs," Brown said.

If a check uncovers ice damage, a crack in a blade or debris in the filters, it is taken to Pratt and Whitney to be analyzed.

The HSC process starts with Airmen washing the aircraft for maintenance preparation.
The initial step is to "tag-out" systems - the process to deactivate systems to safe so the aircraft is ready for maintenance, and to de-panel big parts to begin maintenance.

Which HSC process the aircraft requires determines the routine checks that are to be performed. These processes can include anything from tire pressure checks, oil changes, electrical and gear inspections to hydraulic checks and flight deck panel checks - anything that moves on the aircraft.

"We de-panel and take apart the aircraft and inspect components that wouldn't be part of a normal everyday inspection," said Air Force Master Sgt. Joshua Stumpff, aero-repair section chief. "The Airmen that complete these tasks work hard and effectively with each other. It's amazing how much work is accomplished when you have an integration of multiple agencies across the base to achieve the mission at hand."

The vast number and varied types of inspections and checks require a force of multiple career fields to play their part in the HSC process, whether it's doing the maintenance or providing the support.

The different career fields that have a part in the required maintenance include crew chiefs, electrical and environmental systems, aerospace propulsion, electronic warfare, as well as many others.

There are times when the Airmen will work with maintainers in career fields other than their own.

For example, when aerospace propulsion mechanics have to perform an engine operational check, the hydraulic shop has to run their depressurization checks at the same time and they have to bleed all hydraulic systems for filter changes.

Also during this engine check, the E-and-E shop has to check their on-board inert gas generating system.

The hydraulics and E-and-E shop can't do their checks without the propulsion shop performing an engine run because their shops don't have engine-run personnel; working together saves time and money.

"There are many occasions where we also need to work with the sheet metal shop to have parts repaired or made. This requires an effective use of communication between our shops to get the materials needed to help us get the mission done," explained Senior Airman Nicholas Cantrell, an aerospace propulsion journeyman.

"I really enjoy working with the other Airmen with this task. There is a wide variety of skill sets here I can learn from, and I try to take advantage of every opportunity to learn about how something works and runs on the jet," said Airman 1st Class Rachel Zaker, a C-17 crew chief.

After all the required maintenance is completed and inspected, the HSC is complete.
The aircraft is now mission ready.

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