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Maintenance at a civil airport?
- Thread starter skybert
- Start date
T-6 has nothing classified, and it’s largely built to civilian (FAA) cert specs with a very common engine, as you pointed out. I know we’ve hired civilian A&Ps on the road while delivering aircraft from the factory before.
Military owned T-6 probably requires high level approval, but I bet it’s not unheard of for an A&P to fix something off-station. Operational platforms like the P-8 or F/A-18 have classified components and would have to be approved by the TYCOM, so I’m guessing the answer would be a hard no, short of WWIII breaking out.
Quick sea story…
As a fleet JO, I was leading a pair of F/A-18Cs out of Oceana on a weekend XC for some good deal local BFM, spending the weekend across town at Norfolk. This was during maintenance phase on a weekend the CO had given everyone a 48-hour pass, so no watches at the squadron. Well, somebody hadn’t torqued down all the screws on one of the stabilator service panels, and about 20 of them vibed loose during our BFM double-turn. Caught it on post-flight and called the MO. After much discussion, he got me approval to drive across town to the squadron, raid the airframe shop for the screws (AM2 was out of town, but told me what drawer they were in and I had removed one as an example) and gave me approval to install new screws before flying the jet home. I also had our gunner talk me through resetting a clamshell on one of the AIM-9 wingtip launchers that had popped open on the same flight (!!!)
You should have seen the PC’s eyes on Sunday afternoon when I RTB’d and gave him a planeside debrief, telling him what I had done to fly the jet home and how those new screws probably needed attention from airframes and corrosion before flying again.
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I was flying back to Pendleton from a Flagstaff CCX (a great destination for that, by the way) with a stop for a fuel topoff and lunch at KSEZ - which if you’ve never been has to be one of the most gorgeous GA airports in America. Anyway, a few minutes after leaving Sedona my -2 Huey takes a bird down the side and close enough to the intake to worry about it. He lands at Cottonwood airport to have the CCs take a look. A very friendly greybeard Nam era Huey pilot happens to be on the ramp working on his plane, and graciously offered the use of his borescope for the guys to take a look at the motor. Let me tell you, if you ever wanna make some old vet’s day (or maybe year), borrow his tools to help get your plane back in the fight.
I’ll give you one better. I was part of a 5 ship boondoggle of S-3s out of Fallon to get pictures in Diamond with Mt Shasta in the background, then drop 6 Rockeyes in a line abreast off Washington in the warning area, and RTB via some VR route. Short version: only 1 jet made the entire thing. Lost 1 right after getting airborne, then lost me, my wingman had to rtb after chasing me and my emergency, the other 2 made the Rockeye drops but only 1 had enough gas for the low level.T-6 has nothing classified, and it’s largely built to civilian (FAA) cert specs with a very common engine, as you pointed out. I know we’ve hired civilian A&Ps on the road while delivering aircraft from the factory before.
Military owned T-6 probably requires high level approval, but I bet it’s not unheard of for an A&P to fix something off-station. Operational platforms like the P-8 or F/A-18 have classified components and would have to be approved by the TYCOM, so I’m guessing the answer would be a hard no, short of WWIII breaking out.
Quick sea story…
As a fleet JO, I was leading a pair of F/A-18Cs out of Oceana on a weekend XC for some good deal local BFM, spending the weekend across town at Norfolk. This was during maintenance phase on a weekend the CO had given everyone a 48-hour pass, so no watches at the squadron. Well, somebody hadn’t torqued down all the screws on one of the stabilator service panels, and about 20 of them vibed loose during our BFM double-turn. Caught it on post-flight and called the MO. After much discussion, he got me approval to drive across town to the squadron, raid the airframe shop for the screws (AM2 was out of town, but told me what drawer they were in and I had removed one as an example) and gave me approval to install new screws before flying the jet home. I also had our gunner talk me through resetting a clamshell on one of the AIM-9 wingtip launchers that had popped open on the same flight (!!!)
You should have seen the PC’s eyes on Sunday afternoon when I RTB’d and gave him a planeside debrief, telling him what I had done to fly the jet home and how those new screws probably needed attention from airframes and corrosion before flying again.
So my story, blow an engine near Mt Shasta (total loss of oil), drift down and divert into Klamath Falls. They were not too happy showing up with 6 live Rocks. An oil line had cracked and split. They kept trying to get me to fold the wings but as I told them “these wings only fold at the Boat and home base.” Fast forward an hour or two, one of the guard guys was an AD in the Navy once upon a time and thinks he can manufacture the part. So he does, and apparently, as Aircraft Commander, you can sign off his work, low power, high power and fly it back to Fallon legally.
In the end, Skipper was mad I didn’t divert to Fallon. However, CAG came by a gave me a personal handshake & said good job. Any guesses which one had one anchor and the other two anchors?
I've never heard of having a civilian A&P do work on a stranded military aircraft. There's no easy or fast way to get a non-government entity paid, which would require a NAVSUP Contracting Officer to write a contract. That could take weeks. The standard answer is for the squadron to send a rescue Mx det. For relatively minor stuff, the aircrew can be talked through the maintenance over the phone from their own Mx folks. I've had to do that lots of times when on the road.
GroundPounder
Well-Known Member
I would have figured that with the emphasis on ball bearings in modern aircraft design, that maintenance on the road would be easier to handle.
Don't think that purchasing Mx was ever the intent of SF-44, and kind of an anachronism these days with GPCs and GTCC. Today, money is very tightly controlled, for good reason. I suspect that a high percentage of the "back in the day" SF-44 stories you've heard are apocryphal.
We had a leash of 1000nm in TW5. Boston-ish was the farthest we had a breakdown.
As others have said, the CNATRA-contracted MX personnel get flown out, fix it, and either a contract FCF pilot flies it back, or an active duty pilot flies it back. The FCF contractors usually fly it back whenever there is a significant MESM-related issue, as a means of risk mitigation for the active duty folks.
Cadillac chit?
I remember once a USMC F-4 in Osan had an attitude gyro that was tumbling pre go for a hard IFR flight back to Iwakuni. The crew did a quick swap of gyros with an adjacent USAF F-4 on the T line and pressed…alledgedly.
JoeBob1788
Well-Known Member
My dad (Phantom and Tomcat RIO) just told me about a flight school T-2 cross country to Boston. Return preflight revealed a low LOX bottle. They were parked next to an A-4, and the IP was a Marine A-4 guy who knew the T-2 and A-4 shared a common LOX. Quick swap and back to NPA!