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04-03-2011, 12:58
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חבר מתאריך: 13.11.04
הודעות: 16,823
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לא רק בח"א שלנו, גם בארה"ב מתמודדים עם אותה מצוקה בדיוק...
בתגובה להודעה מספר 1 שנכתבה על ידי Taurus84 שמתחילה ב "יסעור 985 יוקם לתחייה, ישודרג, ויוחזר לשירות"
למי שתוהה "מדוע לא מבקשים לקבל יסעורים נוספים חינם מאמריקה", אפשר להניח שהצרכים המבצעים (והאבדות) בעירק, באפגניסטן ובמקומות אחרים מחייבים גם את האמריקנים להחזיר לשימוש יסעורים ולהאריך את חייהם של אלו שכבר בשימוש. בשנה שעברה הם סיימו פרויקט של חמש שנים במהלכו החזירו לשימוש 10 מסוקי יסעור (משני דגמים), כאשר זמן ניכר הושקע בחיפוש סיזיפי אחר חלקי חילוף, רכיבים וכו' עבור דגמי ה D הותיקים, כולל אצל המקבילים שלהם מהאיירפורס. אגב גם לא הצלחתי למצוא יותר מדי יסעורים באריזונה עם גוגל מפס. אולי יש יותר מהספורים הללו, המקום באמת עצום.
DLA helps Navy resurrect CH-53 helicopters
By Cathy Hopkins, DSCR Public Affairs
July 1, 2010
A team of Marines, Air National
Guardsmen, and FRC-East artisans unload a CH-53E on the FRC-East flight line in Cherry Point, N.C. DLA aviation team members there worked with the FRC fo five years to return 10 retired CH-53s to service.
(File Photo by Dykie Whitfield, FRC-East)
The Defense Logistics Agency's aviation team recently completed a joint venture with the Navy to bring 10 helicopters back from the grave.
In 2005, the Navy recalled to active service eight CH-53E Super Stallion and two CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters that had been laid to rest in an Arizona desert “bone yard.” The Marine Corps needed more of the heavy-lifting helicopters and – since Sikorsky’s CH-53 production ended in 1999 – restoring the mothballed aircraft was their only option.
Over the next five years, C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft flew the helicopters more than 2,000 miles from the Air Force's Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group in Tucson, Ariz., to Navy Fleet Readiness Center-East in Cherry Point, N.C. The FRC is one of six that provide maintenance, engineering and logistics support to all military services for a variety of aircraft, engines and components.
Chris Collins, a supervisory equipment specialist for the Aircraft and Components Branch at DLA Cherry Point, was involved with the project from the start. DLA aviation employees there provide supply, storage and distribution support for maintenance activities at FRC-East.
“A lot of planning went into the project even before the aircraft arrived. My team worked with the Navy’s Industrial Quality Team and production personnel, identifying requirements and scheduling deliveries to coincide with ongoing maintenance,” Collins said.
For Collins' team, which included Equipment Specialist Mike Henderson, Customer Support Representative Bill Frye, and Supply Technicians Kathy Grate and Primous Scott, the CH-53 project was an addition to their regular work of ensuring parts arrive on time for roughly 21 aircraft that come to the FRC quarterly for planned maintenance.
Before the CH-53s arrived, the team partnered with a Navy aircraft planner who reviewed aircraft logs to help them determine parts requirements. They also worked with FRC-East Aircraft Examiner and Evaluator Russell Payton, who inspected the helicopters inside and out to discover other parts that might be needed. Aside from their individual needs, each aircraft also had to be brought up to date with fleet-wide modifications made since their retirement, including airframe, accessory, and dynamic component changes.
“On every occasion, the aircraft were unable to fly and brought from the bone yard to the FRC semi-disassembled with their batwings, gear boxes, and rotor heads taken off,” Collins said. The helicopters were wrapped in protective paper to help prevent corrosion.
“Having Chris work on this project was really an asset to us. I always went to him for hard-to-find items and he made it work,” Payton said. He added that things wouldn’t have run as smoothly without Collins’ support or the presence of DLA personnel in the FRC.
The biggest challenge for Collins and his team was getting parts for the two CH-53D Sea Stallions.
“The D models were Vietnam era aircraft and had been out of production for many years,” Collins said. “About 50 percent of the parts needed were difficult to acquire.”
Collins and his team used every available avenue to find parts. They researched items stocked by DLA, looked for available surplus parts and even turned to local manufacturing sources when needed.
“Structural components were the most difficult to replace,” Collins said. “Parts like bulk heads, fittings, ribs and frames aren’t normally stocked for replacement. In a lot of cases, we would have to pull the drawings, assign a local stock number and then have the part made.”
Collins said the FRC-East Manufacturing Branch came to the rescue several times by creating parts that weren’t available anywhere else, which is referred to as organic manufacturing.
“We had to do workarounds for 600-plus items,” Collins said. “Most were organic manufacture or surplus buys. About 10 percent of the items we were able to get from the Air Force as they began retiring the Pavelow aircraft, because it was the same type-model series as the 53Ds.”
Collins said his team met almost daily with FRC-East personnel, using Navy and DLA business tools to help focus the project and reduce process times and costs.
On average, Collins said refurbishing each helicopter required 3,100 consumable parts (80 percent DLA-managed), 229 Navy-managed parts, and 47 modification kits containing parts managed by both DLA and the Navy. The average refurbishment cost was $2.8 million apiece.
By contrast, the cost of a new CH-53E Super Stallion was nearly $25 million in 1992 – the Marines list the unit replacement cost at $40 million.
The last refurbished CH-53E Super Stallion returned to service April 16 with Marine Helicopter Training Squadron 302 at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.
http://www.dscr.dla.mil/externalnews/news/20100702.htm |
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