News>433rd MXS uses "water jet" technology to maximize mission
Photos
Senior Airman Craig Nicholson, a 433rd Maintenance Squadron metals technician, places a sheet of aluminum inside the filtered-water bath of the "water jet" to cut out a replacement C-5 throttle-locking plate.The jet-machining center manufactures certain C-5 component parts which are no longer commercially available. The 433rd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit located at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas which operates the C-5A Galaxy to provide combat ready forces to combatant commanders.
Senior Airman Craig Nicholson, a 433rd Maintenance Squadron metals technician, compares a used C-5 Galaxy throttle-locking plate with a newly manufactured one he created using the "water jet." The jet-machining center manufactures certain C-5 component parts which are no longer commercially available. The 433rd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit located at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas which operates the C-5A Galaxy to provide combat ready forces to combatant commanders.
Senior Airman Craig Nicholson and Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Tate, 433rd Maintenance Squadron metals technicians, install a freshly-manufactured C-5A Galaxy throttle-locking plate which was created using the unit's new "water jet." The jet-machining center manufactures certain C-5 component parts which are no longer commercially available. The 433rd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit located at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas which operates the C-5A Galaxy to provide combat ready forces to combatant commanders.
Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Tate, a 433rd Maintenance Squadron metals technician, installs a roll pin bushing onto the main landing gear piston. The bushing was placed in liquid nitrogen for 40 minutes to constrict the bushing for installation inside a C-5A Galaxy. The bushing was manufactured using the unit's new "water jet". The jet-machining center manufactures certain C-5 component parts which are no longer commercially available. The 433rd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit located at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas which operates the C-5A Galaxy to provide combat ready forces to combatant commanders.
by Elsa Martinez
433rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
9/6/2012 - JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- What is the 433rd Maintenance Squadron Metals Technology shop to do when tasked with replacing parts for a C-5A Galaxy which have long since been unavailable?
Easy--find state-of-the-art equipment and make your own. It is exactly how the O-MAX jet-machining center, or "water-jet", found its way to 433rd MXS.
With an ever-aging C-5 fleet--the youngest jet on the ramp was built in 1970--M-TECH has manufactured its own replacement components since the wing's C-130 days.
Master Sgt. Fidencio "Pete" Ramon, 433rd MXS M-TECH shop chief, described how 433rd MXS Sheet Metal and Aircraft Generation Equipment shops, to name two, demanded their own components with very specific requirements.
"Sheet Metal would need us to machine metal as low as 25/1000ths of an inch," he said. "AGE would require metals such as stainless steel. Steel is very difficult to machine, leaves a bad finish, and puts huge wear-and-tear on our own equipment."
But, ever resourceful, M-TECH personnel found their water-jet with a little diligence and observation, plus good, old-fashioned Internet sleuthing. Ramon described how he turned to his best resource, his personnel, on their pilgrimage to find the needful tool to meet production requirements. "I have very talented technicians." he bragged. "So, I just turned them a-loose, and they did all the research and came back with the results."
Besides Internet surfing, M-TECH personnel traveled to other units. While on temporary duty, they witnessed the water-jet in use in other shops.
"They saw how much work was saved when making similar aircraft components, so they brought back that experience, used the Internet, wrote the justification, and now here it is in our shop," Ramon said.
In early April, the water-jet arrived and immediately paid for itself. "After getting the water-jet, shop production increased by 65-75%," he said.
Parts manufactured by the water-jet may be as simple as speaker mounts, used to secure audio speakers inside the jet ,so aircrew members may communicate with each other, and "shims," the black-line spacers which stripe across walk-ways to increase friction and stop possible slipping and falling. But however ordinary the parts may seem, how those parts are produced is far more interesting.
Senior Airman Craig Nicholson, a 433rd MXS metals technician, had to replace a worn C-5 throttle- locking plate. "These cover plates just get old," explained Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Tate, another 433rd MXS metals craftsman. "They're just as necessary, and even if we can't find them the aircrews still need them."
To illustrate, Nicholson demonstrated how he programmed the O-MAX's computer to the exact specification into the water-jet's computer. Those specs entered include the plate's height, length, radius, whole size, location, coordinates on the machine grid, the type of material, thickness, among others. After placing a sheet of aluminum on the platform, the water-jet worked its magic. The sheet was cut amid a noisy flurry of filtered water as the garnet granules cut and shaped the new plate. A job which normally took nearly two hours now takes less than 30 minutes.
"Before the water-jet, we'd use a circular saw to cut material that was too large to be placed in the shear (a moving blade that comes down across a fixed blade, used to cut metal) or in a milling machine," explained Tate. "Doing so was very lengthy and also posed safety and production problems."
Even large sheets of metal, such as a four-inch, 4,000-lb 4 x 12 feet, sheet of aluminum or other metal, must be hoisted by forklift and placed by crane inside the cutting plate for the circular saw--a potential safety hazard from the sheer weight of handling such a massive piece of metal. "But with the water-jet, all we do is hoist the entire plate into the water bath and let her rip."
On another occasion, the water jet manufactured a fixture to machine a roll-pin bushing for the C-5's main landing gear. With the water jet's speed and agility, M-TECH saved the Air Force an estimated $300,000 with two bushings, preventing the complete replacement of the main landing gear strut. Other 433rd shops have reaped the benefits of the water jet, such as the 433rd MXS Mold Shop.
"They were cutting large sheets of honeycomb (used for the internal support of aircraft composite panels) into small sections to be handled by a vertical band saw. This was problematic because of the C-5's large number of outsize panels, and cutting the honeycomb into smaller pieces weakens the panel dramatically. But with the water jet, the cutting is now faster, easier and a lot safer," said Ramon.
Saving money with the water-jet grows exponentially. "I estimate that just with the cutting aluminum by hand took ten hours, or 80 hours per jet. This machine cuts our time to about 30 minutes per aircraft panel. That's a savings to the U.S. Air Force of nine and a half hours per aircraft, or 608 hours for the C-5A community," said Ramon--no small feat in a time of doing more with less.
Col. Charles Combs, 433rd Maintenance Group commander, was justifiably proud of his personnel but not surprised. "I've always known they were the best," he remarked. "I'm not at all surprised that they found their own ingenious solution to a tricky problem. But that's what they do best: figure out the problem, fix it, and do it right. And in the rain, they delivered the mail."
