Barrel nut team gets Rock birds back in the air

Published April 23, 2009
By Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Doscher
386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- A team of 30 Airmen across five units helped keep the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing's mission effectiveness rates above 98 percent during a nine-day period when the wing had only three flyable C-130 aircraft.

The Barrel Nut Time Compliance Technical Order Team, a group of Airmen comprised of members of the 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, the 386th Expeditionary Maintenance Group, the 386th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron, the 386th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron and the 737th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, was assembled and assigned to inspect and replace the wing-joint barrel nuts on every C-130 in the 386th AEW after an immediate action TCTO was issued by Air Force Materiel Command March 4.

"We were given 72 hours to accomplish this inspection," said Senior Master Sgt. Michael Firth, 386th EAMXS Lead Production Superintendent and Barrel Nut TCTO Team leader. "The TCTO was for us to go look and inspect the nuts that are installed on these bolts to make sure they were the proper ones. They spelled out specific criteria for us to look for. If we did have one of these nuts, they wanted us to replace it with the proper hardware."

The C-130 outer wing is attached to the center wing with 28 bolts and barrel nuts, 13 upper and 15 lower on each side of the aircraft. The lower wing nuts were not affected.

"It's the main bolt that holds the wing together," explained Staff Sgt. Jay Johnson, 386th EAMXS repair reclamation craftsman. "So if you lose those, there are pretty serious consequences. So it was very important for us to find them and change them out as quickly as possible to ensure safety of flight."

Sergeant Firth said the immediate concern was how to inspect every aircraft inside three days without slowing the wing's mission.

"We didn't want to just go out and ground the entire fleet in one day," the Charlotte, N.C., native said. "We probably could have done that, but knowing how important the mission is here, we looked at a couple of airplanes each day. We scheduled the inspections in such a way that it didn't impact the daily Air Tasking Order."

At the end of the three day inspection, the wing was faced with sobering news.

"At the end of the 72 hours, we had three flyable planes," Sergeant Firth said. "The rest had bad barrel nuts."

Because the TCTO affected the entire C-130 fleet Air Force-wide, getting enough good barrel nuts to bring the 386th's squadron back to full strength was a little harder than simply asking to borrow some from the next base.

"The biggest challenge was that they weren't readily available to us," said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Barnes, 386th ELRS Materiel Management superintendent. "Normally, we have access to a part somewhere, and we can get it here. Most of the reason for that is that all the aircraft don't need that same part, so we're not fighting to get the same part for a bunch of different aircraft. This, being that it was a TCTO, there was a limited number of assets for the entire C-130 fleet, so we couldn't just reach out to a base and say, 'send me what you got,' where normally we could."

Who got the part and when depended on mission priorities, with Air Force Special Operations Command being at the top of the list, said Master Sgt. Richard Tarrence, 386th ELRS Maintenance Supply Liaison Office NCOIC.

"We were pretty high on the totem pole since we're in the AOR," the Boston native said. "Of course, everything we do here is top priority also. The challenge was just getting those, finding out where we were on the pecking order. Once we found out where we were, it was just a matter of tracking where those nuts were coming from and where they were distributed to."

Quick, effective coordination was the key, Sergeant Barnes said. By working with Sergeant Tarrence and the maintainers to find out how many barrel nuts they needed quickly, he said the wing was able to get their request in first.

"Maintenance got us the information, and we got our numbers in first as far as what we needed to be released," he said. "We actually got the first ones in theater here at this base."

But Rome wasn't built in a day, and it still took several days for the barrel nuts to arrive. While Logistics tracked the incoming parts, the maintainers and operators had to keep the mission going with three aircraft until they arrived.

Lt. Col. Daryl Sassaman, 737th EAS director of operations, said the three C-130s were flying continuously to make sure the mission was met.

"We spent a lot of hours on the phone working with the air mobility division for turn times on the aircraft so the schedule allowed the airplane to land, go through some inspections and fly again," he said. "Not knowing the timing of when the barrel nuts would be into theater had us concerned about sustained operations with just three tails."
Constantly turning three aircraft didn't just stress the airplanes, Sergeant Firth said. Maintainers had to work constantly to keep those three going for the duration.

"It was a lot of hard work and effort by everybody, not just the people on this team," he said. "All the maintainers worked on those planes to keep them flying, and we were still able to meet the daily Air Tasking Order."

While the maintainers worked to keep the three C-130s in the air, Sergeant Tarrence and his team kept a careful eye on the incoming barrel nuts, watching for possible problems or delays.

"When you're tracking them, anything can happen when they're distributed from the states," he said. "You can get lost shipments, you can get delays."

Tracking the barrel nuts and knowing when they were due to arrive allowed Sergeant Tarrence to coordinate with the maintainers, allowing them to schedule maintenance so there would be no lag time between the barrel nuts' arrival and repairs to the aircraft.

"We worked with the guys on the line to find out what was coming in and going out to figure out the fastest way to get the items here," Sergeant Tarrence said. "Once we found out they were arriving, we went out and hand carried them to the maintainers. My night shift actually went out to the aircraft, got the property and delivered it straight to the maintenance folks."

"Once we had the parts on hand, it was about an hour-and-a-half per plane," said Sergeant Johnson. "We were pretty much just waiting for them to get us the parts."

Sergeant Barnes said the logistics Airmen picked up the parts at 7 p.m. By 8 a.m. the next morning, the work was done.

"That was what I thought was the awesome part of the deal," he said. "When you say it was a team effort, it was Supply working to get them here, Maintenance relaying the information to us so we knew what we needed, AFCENT Supply directing traffic as far as where the priorities were and then, in the end, getting them here, getting them off the plane, getting them to Maintenance and then those guys getting the planes mission capable by morning."

Nine days had passed since the TCTO was issued, and for nine days, the 737th EAS and 386th EAMXS kept three birds flying missions continuously. Colonel Sassaman said the numbers tell the story.

"We still met a 98.5 percent effectiveness rating," he said. "We only lost three sorties. I think the maintenance team did an absolutely fantastic job. They worked some long hours and put a great deal of effort and importance on this TCTO to ensure our aircraft were safe to fly, and in the middle of that they were still launching those three airplanes around the clock."

The 386th AEW recognized the TCTO Team's efforts April 1 when the team was awarded Team of the Month, though many on the Rock were not even aware the barrel nut change-out was taking place. Sergeant Firth said the fact no one noticed anything was wrong just highlights the outstanding job the team did.

"I'm glad if people didn't notice," Sergeant Firth said. "I'm very glad because that's what we were trying to accomplish. We wanted to get this done and not impact the mission whatsoever, and I think we achieved that."