MD KC-10 retired too soon?

Wardogg said:
You should hear the stories about reinventing the wheel Lockheed did on the J model of the KC-130.
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My last assignment was working at DCMA and doing acceptance/check flights on the C-5 after the engine mod was complete. We worked with the Lockheed flight ops folks (and did joint flights with them in the later days of production). The Lockheed flight ops guys flew the C-5 and -130s and let me tell you...the buffoonery that is involved in the DoD contracting/building/paying for these things is absolute mind boggling. How we have ANY planes that are airworthy escapes any logical reason.
 
HeyEng said:
My last assignment was working at DCMA and doing acceptance/check flights on the C-5 after the engine mod was complete. We worked with the Lockheed flight ops folks (and did joint flights with them in the later days of production). The Lockheed flight ops guys flew the C-5 and -130s and let me tell you...the buffoonery that is involved in the DoD contracting/building/paying for these things is absolute mind boggling. How we have ANY planes that are airworthy escapes any logical reason.
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DOD contracting, among a number of things in DOD, are well worth looking at and fixing, in terms of fraud/waste/abuse. But the power of the MIC is strong.
 
MikeD said:
DOD contracting, among a number of things in DOD, are well worth looking at and fixing, in terms of fraud/waste/abuse. But the power of the MIC is strong.
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No doubt about that. I thought just flying around burning sail boat fuel to "make hours for the end of FY" was bad, but that was NOTHING compared to the waste of taxpayer money when it comes to all things USG procurement.
 
HeyEng said:
My last assignment was working at DCMA and doing acceptance/check flights on the C-5 after the engine mod was complete. We worked with the Lockheed flight ops folks (and did joint flights with them in the later days of production). The Lockheed flight ops guys flew the C-5 and -130s and let me tell you...the buffoonery that is involved in the DoD contracting/building/paying for these things is absolute mind boggling. How we have ANY planes that are airworthy escapes any logical reason.
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C-130 depot at Robins was unreal, I remember going on 4 TDYs over the span of 6 months to pick up a plane that was "done". One of the times the ailerons were cabled backwards. "Hey, good preflight eng!"
 
Soku39 said:
C-130 depot at Robins was unreal, I remember going on 4 TDYs over the span of 6 months to pick up a plane that was "done". One of the times the ailerons were cabled backwards. "Hey, good preflight eng!"
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I’ve had more than a few aircraft that have gone to a depot-level repair shop, and have come out seemingly more screwed up than when they went in.
 
Soku39 said:
It's honestly absurd.
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On the flip side, I have seen USAF units defer a bunch of local Mx on a particular tail number, because it’s scheduled to go to depot for X (specific) repair or upgrade, and “we’ll just have depot fix the rest”, even though “the rest” may not be in the scope of work depot was supposed to be doing.
 
Soku39 said:
C-130 depot at Robins was unreal, I remember going on 4 TDYs over the span of 6 months to pick up a plane that was "done". One of the times the ailerons were cabled backwards. "Hey, good preflight eng!"
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I have a serious disdain for that place. They killed friends of mine.

www.military.com

Feds Arrest Former Air Force Base Engineer in Connection to Deadly Mississippi KC-130 Crash in 2017

James Michael Fisher's arrest comes nearly seven years to the day after the July 10, 2017, crash.
www.military.com www.military.com
 
MikeD said:
On the flip side, I have seen USAF units defer a bunch of local Mx on a particular tail number, because it’s scheduled to go to depot for X (specific) repair or upgrade, and “we’ll just have depot fix the rest”, even though “the rest” may not be in the scope of work depot was supposed to be doing.
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My old unit would wait for the AEF (now AFFORGEN) cycle to hit. We'd send 4 tails to the desert the first 3 months and they'd get all fixed up with that CENTCOM money, halfway through we'd do a 1 to 1 swap, send the other 4 tails and replace crews so no one had to do over 90 unless they wanted to. Then we'd have 8 good tails by the end of it and they would slowly start to break over the course of the 13-15 months until we were back on the hook for the next cycle. Worked like a charm.
 
Soku39 said:
C-130 depot at Robins was unreal, I remember going on 4 TDYs over the span of 6 months to pick up a plane that was "done". One of the times the ailerons were cabled backwards. "Hey, good preflight eng!"
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That was a whole 'nother beast. We would on occasion go down there to fly to help with post depot FCF/ACFs or get recurrent on the A/B models (we maintained currency on all of them) and while it was a mess at times, it wasn't nearly as discombobulated as it was at Lockheed.

A quick story: By the time we stepped to the jet for the first time, it had been QA checked by no less than 3 teams over a period of about a week. These inspections had been added/modified many times over the contract because of "quality escapes" found by the DCMA crews (we were all AD Air Force) which resulted in delays and more money. Well, after a quality stand down that lasted about a month, we walk out to one of the newly QA'd jets. On my initial walk around I notice something odd with a panel under the wing. The panel was large and was missing 47 of 55 screws...and I saw this FROM the ground and without my glasses (which are required for flight duties). 5 minutes later, we were all back inside and we didn't touch that jet for another 2 weeks while the AQ figured what went wrong. This happened on almost EVERY single jet we touched. In all honesty, I have ZERO idea how we didn't crash one or at least burn one to the ground. And yes, when all was said and done, there was an IG complaint filed/addressed and while they determined there were issues...the fix was a big fat nothing burger. Flight test was an exciting way to wrap up my career, but it was ridiculous, too.
 
MikeD said:
On the flip side, I have seen USAF units defer a bunch of local Mx on a particular tail number, because it’s scheduled to go to depot for X (specific) repair or upgrade, and “we’ll just have depot fix the rest”, even though “the rest” may not be in the scope of work depot was supposed to be doing.
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Which was always pretty stupid because depot has a very specific requirement which does not include the stuff that can be fixed on the line. When they started compressing the depot schedule, they started sending jets back with the deferred MX items still there. It was a fight no one could win.

We had some issues with this at Lockheed when some of the AF units thought that Lockheed was also a "depot" station. Well, no. And most of the people that could work on the legacy systems of the plane were either long retired or just dead. It got to a point that we had to go pick up the airplanes for "induction" to make sure they were in good enough shape to fly after the mods. The whole thing gives me headaches thinking about it.
 
HeyEng said:
That was a whole 'nother beast. We would on occasion go down there to fly to help with post depot FCF/ACFs or get recurrent on the A/B models (we maintained currency on all of them) and while it was a mess at times, it wasn't nearly as discombobulated as it was at Lockheed.

A quick story: By the time we stepped to the jet for the first time, it had been QA checked by no less than 3 teams over a period of about a week. These inspections had been added/modified many times over the contract because of "quality escapes" found by the DCMA crews (we were all AD Air Force) which resulted in delays and more money. Well, after a quality stand down that lasted about a month, we walk out to one of the newly QA'd jets. On my initial walk around I notice something odd with a panel under the wing. The panel was large and was missing 47 of 55 screws...and I saw this FROM the ground and without my glasses (which are required for flight duties). 5 minutes later, we were all back inside and we didn't touch that jet for another 2 weeks while the AQ figured what went wrong. This happened on almost EVERY single jet we touched. In all honesty, I have ZERO idea how we didn't crash one or at least burn one to the ground. And yes, when all was said and done, there was an IG complaint filed/addressed and while they determined there were issues...the fix was a big fat nothing burger. Flight test was an exciting way to wrap up my career, but it was ridiculous, too.
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Dude I barely trust my airline to put a plane back together correctly, I can't imagine doing legit DCMA FCFs for USAF.
 
Soku39 said:
Dude I barely trust my airline to put a plane back together correctly, I can't imagine doing legit DCMA FCFs for USAF.
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It went from "holy shiznat I get to do what?!?" to "holy shiznat they are trying to kill me!" pretty quick. So many detrimental things we would find and implore the AF to have fixed, but the program office at Wright-Patt would always say, "nah, it's good enough", we are taking it. Oye.
 
HeyEng said:
It went from "holy shiznat I get to do what?!?" to "holy shiznat they are trying to kill me!" pretty quick. So many detrimental things we would find and implore the AF to have fixed, but the program office at Wright-Patt would always say, "nah, it's good enough", we are taking it. Oye.
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I will to Hill AFB one time to pick up an airplane out of SDLM. CO sent me and the FM to get it ready before the rest of the crew showed up. I spent a week everyday 5 days straight, I'd show up at 7 am, we'd fire up the engines and do a ground pressure check, it would fail, and I would be on the slopes by 10 am. COme back the next day and try again. Until the CO finally decided he had enough and pulled us back until they were ready.

HeyEng said:
I had not heard about this (I was out of the game in 2015) but it doesn't surprise me. I'm sorry, that sucks man.
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There was another one that went unnoticed. This was a former Marine Herk from the same squadron that got pushed to the Chilean AF. This was 2 years after Yanky72.
www.bbc.com

Chilean plane en route to Antarctica disappears with 38 on board

The Chilean Hercules military transport aircraft disappeared while en route to an air force base.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
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