Paging Mr. Higgins

[flipper35]

So, obviously a huge oops, but what is the time frame for fixing something like this? I imagine it isn't a couple bolts and hydraulic hose repair.

https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/12/one-navys-nuclear-war-contingency-aircraft-damaged-hangar-incident.html

[Jeff Higgins]

It's not as bad as it looks. The vertical stab is designed to be easily removed and replaced. That little window above the hanger door is there just to clear the vertical stab, of course, but many hangers I worked in are still too low for some modern, taller aircraft. As a result, we would remove the vertical stab even if we weren't working on it, just to get the airplane inside the hanger.

We often remove it when working outside as well, which may sound weird. It all comes down to wind load - if we are doing a structural repair on the fuselage, for example, we don't need that big ass fin blowing over in the wind and twisting the fuselage when we've torn half of it away.

The bolts that hold that thing on are designed to shear before there is damage to the underlying structure. They will simply remove the fin, clean up any bent sheet metal around its base, and reinstall. Probably replace its leading edge where it made contact, give it a good structural inspection, and be on their way. Maybe half a dozen guys could get it done in a few days.

[flipper35]

Ah. So really they are pretty modular just like their little GA cousins!

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, BUT, it is a military aircraft. That means 3 or 4 times more cost to do the same task.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by flipper35

Ah. So really they are pretty modular just like their little GA cousins!

They kinda hafta be. They lead a rough life. Especially the sticky-out parts like wings and stabilizers. They manage to hit all kinds of things, and get hit by all kinds of things.

[MRM]

Will the pilot ever fly again? I know the Air Force is very unforgiving about pilot error.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by MRM

Will the pilot ever fly again? I know the Air Force is very unforgiving about pilot error.

Not sure there was a pilot involved. Sounds like it was being towed by the little tug boat on wheels when it happened.

[speeder]

And over $2M in damage?? Sheeeeit...I know a body shop down in TJ that would do it for a LOT less.

[flipper35]

The comments in one article asked if they had just hired the Stratolaunch pilots.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by speeder

Not sure there was a pilot involved. Sounds like it was being towed by the little tug boat on wheels when it happened.

Yup, it was the tug driver. Pilots don't drive out of the garage.

Tug drivers are one of our best business generators. I could go on and on regarding their "skills".

One of the best was in Jordan. The crapped out third world tug pushing a brand new 787 back from the gate had a carb fart and lit all of the accumulated grease and grime under its hood on fire. Didn't kill the engine. The driver panicked and ran away from the flames, leaving the tug right under the nose of the shiny new airplane. Coulda pulled the pin at least, and driven it a few yards. But, nope...

It sat there roasting the airplane until it finally did kill the engine. First fire truck shows up to shoot it all with foam, and its pump is dead. Second fire truck shows up to attempt it with water, but the hydrant was dry. Third truck shows up and douses it with the wrong kind of foam, engendering a massive case of hydrogen embrittlement on parts that would have survived.

I spent a long time in Amman on that one. Beautiful place, though. Gave me the chance to float in the Dead Sea on the "other side", looking back across at the West Bank. Was told to be sure to be out of the water before dark, because anyone crawling out of the water after dark gets shot. Nice place...

[MRM]

Originally Posted by speeder

Not sure there was a pilot involved. Sounds like it was being towed by the little tug boat on wheels when it happened.

Probably right. I imagine the jet thrust inside a hanger would be hard to handle. I haven't had enough coffee yet today.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Yup, it was the tug driver. Pilots don't drive out of the garage.

Tug drivers are one of our best business generators. I could go on and on regarding their "skills".

One of the best was in Jordan. The crapped out third world tug pushing a brand new 787 back from the gate had a carb fart and lit all of the accumulated grease and grime under its hood on fire. Didn't kill the engine. The driver panicked and ran away from the flames, leaving the tug right under the nose of the shiny new airplane. Coulda pulled the pin at least, and driven it a few yards. But, nope...

It sat there roasting the airplane until it finally did kill the engine. First fire truck shows up to shoot it all with foam, and its pump is dead. Second fire truck shows up to attempt it with water, but the hydrant was dry. Third truck shows up and douses it with the wrong kind of foam, engendering a massive case of hydrogen embrittlement on parts that would have survived.

I spent a long time in Amman on that one. Beautiful place, though. Gave me the chance to float in the Dead Sea on the "other side", looking back across at the West Bank. Was told to be sure to be out of the water before dark, because anyone crawling out of the water after dark gets shot. Nice place...

Sounds like some of the workers here!

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by MRM

Probably right. I imagine the jet thrust inside a hanger would be hard to handle. I haven't had enough coffee yet today.

Kinda loud, too.

One of my more memorable moments involved the startup of the APU (auxiliary power unit), the small jet turbine that powers the on-board generator(s) in the tail cone. The exhaust nozzle usually points right out the very tip of the very back of the airplane.

Maintenance hangers typically have the office areas opposite of the big doors, and build-up and machine shops along the sides of the hanger. These office complexes can be several stories high. In this case, we had set up the management/engineering/planning/quality assurance personnel on the third floor, behind big glass picture windows with a view of the hanger.

We had a few new engineers, inspectors, and such along on this trip that were in need of some "breaking in". We were getting ready to hand the airplane over to the customer, so we were running functional tests. There was ground power to the airplane, so there was no need to have the APU running in this particular instance, and the airplane was backed into the hanger anyways.

Some of you have guessed where this is going. We made sure all the FNG's were in that office, busily finishing up their paperwork. The rest of us evacuated... So, right on cue, one of the mechanics in the cockpit "accidentally" fired up that APU. Did I mention they are kinda loud? That the airplane was backed right up to that third story picture window?

Some of them took it pretty well, once they crawled out from under their desks and changed their shorts. Some were absolutely livid, indignant, and immediately lodged complaints with their respective bosses back home. No sense of humor.

That was, of course, one of the many creative ways in which we sorted out the real AOG personnel from the wannabes...

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Especially the sticky-out parts like wings and stabilizers. They manage to hit all kinds of things, and get hit by all kinds of things.

Could you cut out the technical talk and put that in layman's terms?

[dar636]

The 707 E-6B (E-6A as delivered) has a history of tail "issues" going back to initial flight testing on aircaft TO251, the prototype. Structural flutter was discovered while trying to demonstrate contractual dash speeds. On the first attempt thought to be low enough risk to not warrant a chase plane or dedicated instrumentation of the vertical stabilizer, about 40% of the vertical stab and rudder departed the aircraft over south Puget Sound. The flight crew knew something had happened but had no idea of the extent until notified by the tower on short final to Boeing Field.

Unable to determine the exact cause our crew spent months restoring the aircraft, instrumenting everything in the tail section, and going back out to repeat the flight profile. This time with a chase aircraft over the Olympic mountains Result:

Same as before. Actually a bit worse as the instrumentation wire bundle inside the vertical stab held the parts together long enough to swing them over and take out several feet of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator. The stabilizer attach fittings were a mess as having already been repaired, leaving the machine shop artisans at Boeing with an impressive task to repair the second time, truly hand built.

The ship was restored again, a fix determined (thicker outer wing skin panels, lower dash speeds) the flutter profile flown a third time (less one of the original pilots) and passed.

TO251 finally delivered to the Navy. Squadron VQ-3, located at Barbers Point Hawaii at the time received this aircraft in a special ceremony and christened it with call sign "Gecko One" and installed a tail-less gecko stencil on the nose gear doors.

Going back to the hangar door cut-outs - the 707 vertical stabilizers had a laydown tool that allowed the tail to lay over horizontally when entering hangars that lacked doors tall enough to accommodate the new aircraft. The Navy used the tool in Barbers Point and at Pax River for the sister squadron VQ-4.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Kinda loud, too.

One of my more memorable moments involved the startup of the APU (auxiliary power unit), the small jet turbine that powers the on-board generator(s) in the tail cone. The exhaust nozzle usually points right out the very tip of the very back of the airplane.

Maintenance hangers typically have the office areas opposite of the big doors, and build-up and machine shops along the sides of the hanger. These office complexes can be several stories high. In this case, we had set up the management/engineering/planning/quality assurance personnel on the third floor, behind big glass picture windows with a view of the hanger.

We had a few new engineers, inspectors, and such along on this trip that were in need of some "breaking in". We were getting ready to hand the airplane over to the customer, so we were running functional tests. There was ground power to the airplane, so there was no need to have the APU running in this particular instance, and the airplane was backed into the hanger anyways.

Some of you have guessed where this is going. We made sure all the FNG's were in that office, busily finishing up their paperwork. The rest of us evacuated... So, right on cue, one of the mechanics in the cockpit "accidentally" fired up that APU. Did I mention they are kinda loud? That the airplane was backed right up to that third story picture window?

Some of them took it pretty well, once they crawled out from under their desks and changed their shorts. Some were absolutely livid, indignant, and immediately lodged complaints with their respective bosses back home. No sense of humor.

That was, of course, one of the many creative ways in which we sorted out the real AOG personnel from the wannabes...

One time I was in a metal enclosure for this P&W engine during start-up. Had to do that for trouble-shooting. It was loud.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by dar636

The 707 E-6B (E-6A as delivered) has a history of tail "issues" going back to initial flight testing on aircaft TO251, the prototype. Structural flutter was discovered while trying to demonstrate contractual dash speeds. On the first attempt thought to be low enough risk to not warrant a chase plane or dedicated instrumentation of the vertical stabilizer, about 40% of the vertical stab and rudder departed the aircraft over south Puget Sound. The flight crew knew something had happened but had no idea of the extent until notified by the tower on short final to Boeing Field.

Unable to determine the exact cause our crew spent months restoring the aircraft, instrumenting everything in the tail section, and going back out to repeat the flight profile. This time with a chase aircraft over the Olympic mountains Result:

Same as before. Actually a bit worse as the instrumentation wire bundle inside the vertical stab held the parts together long enough to swing them over and take out several feet of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator. The stabilizer attach fittings were a mess as having already been repaired, leaving the machine shop artisans at Boeing with an impressive task to repair the second time, truly hand built.

The ship was restored again, a fix determined (thicker outer wing skin panels, lower dash speeds) the flutter profile flown a third time (less one of the original pilots) and passed.

TO251 finally delivered to the Navy. Squadron VQ-3, located at Barbers Point Hawaii at the time received this aircraft in a special ceremony and christened it with call sign "Gecko One" and installed a tail-less gecko stencil on the nose gear doors.

Going back to the hangar door cut-outs - the 707 vertical stabilizers had a laydown tool that allowed the tail to lay over horizontally when entering hangars that lacked doors tall enough to accommodate the new aircraft. The Navy used the tool in Barbers Point and at Pax River for the sister squadron VQ-4.

My mom was an expediter in engineering test in Seattle at that time. She actually saw that thing coming in with that damage. Of course, so did most of Seattle. It was the talk of the town for some time.

[Jeff Higgins]

Meh... who needs all that stuff anyhow?

B17 rudder chewed off by another B17:



B17 missing most of the rudder and the entire right hand horizontal stab:

[tabs]

Just do what the R Gruppe does glue it back on.

[oldE]

Three months ago, we had a Asian carrier 747 freighter go off the end of the runway at Halifax.
I suspect the damage and the cost of repairs exceeded the value of the aircraft.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cargo-jet-that-overshot-halifax-airport-runway-dismantled-1.4911873


You can't save 'em all.




Best
Les