AFSC News

Planning session focuses on tanker maintenance

  • Published
  • By Mike W. Ray
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla --  A comprehensive planning session that focused on development of a proposed timeline for stand-up of the new Air Force tanker depot maintenance operations at Tinker AFB was held recently.

Jody LeBlanc, KC-46 Product Support integrator, invited a group of approximately two dozen specialists from "the various areas of expertise" to "map out" the entire stand-up process over the next six years.

The experts were drawn from Tinker AFB; Hill AFB at Ogden, Utah; Robins AFB, Ga.; and from Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where the KC-46A program office has been established.

The group assembled for a week in a room at the Rose State College Training Center. Charts and graphs pertaining to support, equipment, training, facilities, and myriad other topics, were taped on all four walls, and Post-It notes were sprinkled throughout.
The suggested plan will next be sent through the chain of command for review.

The prime contractor, Boeing, is in the design phase for the new tanker; Critical Design Review is scheduled a year from now, in July 2013. Mr. LeBlanc said Boeing is scheduled to deliver the first production model on April 27, 2016.

Initial plans call for replacing 179 of the existing Air Force fleet of KC-135 tankers with the new KC-46A tanker, Mr. LeBlanc said.

Mr. LeBlanc's job is to ensure that all three of the Air Force Sustainment Command's Logistics Complexes -- at Tinker, Ogden and Warner Robins -- are "prepared and ready to perform depot maintenance on the KC-46 when it is required, starting in 2018." He and his team also are responsible for life cycle management of the platform.

In other words, he said, "It is my job to integrate and manage maintenance, supply, contracting, personnel, modifications, diminishing material, budgets, and many other issues that will affect the availability of the aircraft -- cradle to grave."

As it stands right now, Mr. LeBlanc said, Tinker has been designated to maintain the aircraft engines and aircraft frame, Warner Robins will be responsible for most of the avionics, and Ogden will maintain the plane's landing gear.

Tinker will maintain the new tankers on two-year "C-check" cycles, and all three logistics complexes will stand-up back shop repairs as needed, he said.

Typically it takes about 127 days to overhaul a KC-135, according to Col. Brad Tannehill, 76th Aircraft Maintenance Group commander.

In comparison, the first C-check on the KC-46A will be completed in about five to seven days, Mr. LeBlanc said. "We'll check the tires, brakes and sheet metal, change filters, etc." Each biennial C-check will take more time to complete than did the previous one, as the components and parts age and the inspections go a little deeper, he explained.

In a briefing that was presented June 5 to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, James C. Miller, Director of Engineering, OC-ALC/GK, related the future paradigm shift in tanker maintenance. Currently a KC-135 is "captured" for extended periods of time and "basically rebuilt from the ground up." In the future, the KC-46A will be brought to Tinker for short periods of time for specified maintenance. The longest period will be C-check 4 at 45 days, Mr. Miller reported.

When the new depot operation at Tinker is up and running, engine and commodities work probably will be performed in Bldg. 9001, Mr. LeBlanc speculated. Unserviceable parts will be removed from the aircraft and replaced with serviceable parts; the unserviceable parts will be sent to the back shops for repairs.

The forecast calls for back shop repairs to start here in 2019. "That will be a big workload increase for Tinker," Mr. LeBlanc said, adding, "Conceivably, Tinker and the other two logistics complexes could be doing KC-46 maintenance work for the next 50 years."
A new area for hangars to house the KC-46A will have to be developed at Tinker "because they'll be bigger than anything we've got now," Mr. LeBlanc said. The KC-46A will be a derivative of a commercial passenger airplane, the 767-200. Environmental studies must be performed before the new hangars can be constructed, he noted.

A Depot Activation Working Group meets every four months with representatives of the contractor to discuss progress on the aircraft, and any problems encountered in the stand-up of the depot facilities. In addition, representatives of the logistics complexes conduct periodic teleconferences with Boeing technicians and officials.

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