AFSO 21: MXG reevaluates procedures, finds ways to boost efficiency

Published June 9, 2006
By Senior Airman Christie Putz
92nd ARW Public Affairs

FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- Members of the 92nd Maintenance Group were thinking smarter when they introduced a new procedure on the Fairchild flightline this month, cutting the KC-135’s ground time between flights nearly in half.

“The normal practice for the KC-135 community, for the past several decades, has been a four-hour turnaround between sorties,” said Maj. Dave Robertson, 92nd Maintenance Group quality assurance. “Because of a recent change to our technical orders, we now have the authority to change how we ‘turn’ jets.”

The new procedure, called a “gas’n’go” in the maintenance community, aims to make Airmen and aircraft more efficient by reducing repetitive work.

“There are a lot of redundancies throughout the several inspections we perform on these jets,” Major Robertson said. “We are basically cutting out some of those redundancies in order to increase our mission capability.”

The typical four-hour turnaround takes place when a flight crew lands and turns over possession of the aircraft to the maintenance Airmen for inspections and servicing. Anytime they assume possession of a jet, there is a minimum of four hours needed before the next crew can prepare for flight.

The rewritten technical orders now say that if a member of the aircrew remains with the aircraft, the Operations Group retains possession of the jet. This allows the maintenance crews flexibility in the amount of inspections and the extent to which they need to be completed.

The current gas’n’go, as the name implies, is simply filling the jet with fuel, completing a brief walk-around inspection and then letting the aircrews get back into the air.

Currently, Fairchild is the only KC-135 wing to be employing this procedure.

“We are leading the tanker fleet,” said Chief Master Sgt. John Gillette, 92nd MXG superintendent. “I don’t know of any other tanker base that has refined this and has it as a normal tool in their bag of operational capabilities.”

However, the idea behind this is nothing new.

“The T-tail community, like the C-5s and the C-17s, do the same thing,” Major Robertson said. “The plane lands, they roll the cargo off, put the fuel on, do a quick walk around the aircraft to make sure everything is good and off they press.

“So we’re just new to the game, it’s not that the game itself is new,” he added.

Other communities that often employ similar processes are those with aircraft directly involved in combat actions.

Chief Gillette, who comes from a fighter and bomber community where combat turns are the norm, realized the need for a change to the KC-135 process. It was he who noted the change to the technical orders and approached leadership about the possibility.

After educating both the maintainers and the operators, they received approval and began the implementation phase.

However, the Operations side wanted to proceed carefully.

“Initially we were concerned that checklist steps could have been missing with the removal of the in-place maintenance quick turn checklist,” said Maj. Adam Marshall, 92nd Operations Group chief pilot of standardization and evaluation. “But ops and maintenance have worked well together to ensure that the new procedure is sound,” he said.

As with the standard process, the maintainers rely on the aircrew to give thorough reports about the performance of the aircraft while in flight.

“If the aircrew has any known discrepancies, they will call ahead before even landing,” Major Robertson said. “The appropriate specialist will then meet the crew at the jet upon landing to assess the situation.”

At that time, the maintainers must make a decision on whether or not the aircraft is flyable, or if they need to give the crew a new one to fly the next mission. However, only rarely do planes come back in such condition.

“It comes back to the reliability of the aircraft,” the chief said. “Only about five percent of the time does an airplane land with a grounding discrepancy.”

Good luck is definitely not all that they are banking on though. There are still numerous other inspections that take place, keeping the aircraft in top shape.

“By cutting our turn time in half, we can get more planes up in the sky, more frequently. It increases the force multiplier concept of the tankers,” Major Robertson said.

More tankers in the sky gives fighters and bombers more refueling options, and ultimately more time in the air to accomplish their missions.

The difference between the two processes can increase the standard of two sorties a day per jet, to three and sometimes four sorties, drastically increasing capabilities.

Looking at the bigger picture, many can see this initiative affecting deployed operations in favorable ways.

“With this, we are able to do the same amount of work with fewer tankers,” said Major Robertson.

Currently, Fairchild is using the process as a tool, but not as a standard.

“We still turn jets on the four-hour basis, but we are doing a couple of these a week,” Chief Gillette said.

Most of these quick turns are reserved for last minute tasking or requests for refueling. The operations community now has the ability to accept those missions that fall within that four-hour block of previously untouchable time.

The Air Force Smart Operations 21 mentality includes thinking of new ways to make current processes more effective.

“This whole procedure definitely ties in with this,” Chief Gillette said. “We have to do it smartly and safe, but we are always looking for ways to lean the process down. I think we are down to the minimum now.”