Photo By Tech. Sgt. Joseph Pagan | Airman 1st Class Andrew Mathews, 2nd Maintenance Squadron aircraft structural...... read more read more
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BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. — Keeping the B-52H Stratofortress in flight is no easy task. Airmen are continuously fixing and painting parts on the 60-year-old aircraft to keep it mission ready.
The airmen of the 2nd Maintenance Squadron structural maintenance flight here have a critical role in the appearance and maintenance of the B-52H.
"Our overall mission is to keep the bombers fit for flight," said Senior Airman Dillon Dunbar, 2 MXS aircraft structural maintenance journeyman.
No task is too small or too large for these airmen. They are frequently tasked to repair an array of parts on the aircraft.
"Our shop is responsible for fabricating and repairing metal, fiberglass and bonded honeycomb structures on Barksdale B-52H aircraft valued at $2.3 billion," said Tech. Sgt. Matthew Wise, 2 MXS aircraft structural maintenance NCO in-charge and Wing Corrosion Manager.
These responsibilities include trimming and fitting replacement panels, locally manufacturing and repairing aircraft flight control cables, identifying and treating corrosion, applying protective coatings and decals to aircraft parts, aerospace ground equipment, and more, added Wise.
"Weekly, we are on the flightline replacing parts as small as rivets," said Dunbar. "Our larger jobs include replacing entire panels on the aircraft and checking for corrosion."
The corrosion inspection is a long process during which airmen inspect aircraft from the nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip, he added.
Corrosion is the destruction of metal by electrochemical reaction with its environment, said Wise.
"When corrosion is located, we sand the parts and replace them if need be," said Dunbar. "We then add a primer to parts and spray the entire aircraft with a corrosion preventive compound to further protect it."
Not only do they repair the plane and prevent corrosion, but they also paint the aircraft.
"We paint the aircraft whenever we replace the parts," said Dunbar. "The color of the B-52H is a dark grey so it can blend with the dark sky when at a certain altitude."
Parts that need to be painted are taken to the corrosion control shop where the airmen blast, sand, prepare and paint all of the aircraft parts, said Wise.
Long before the shop replaces, fixes or paints a part, the repair process begins when a malfunction is noted by the aircraft maintenance squadron airmen and calls in the discrepancies through the maintenance operations center.
"Once we receive note of the damaged part it's our job to repair, fix, paint and return the part back to its manufacturers' specifications," said Staff Sgt. Alfred Shanks, 2nd MXS aircraft structural maintenance craftsman.
The aircraft structural maintenance airmen keep the Barksdale mission ongoing by remembering their shop motto "Beat it to fit, paint it to match!"
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2012 11:01 |
| Story ID: | 92120 |
| Location: | BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fab Flight Series: Structural Maintenance Flight keep B-52s mission ready, by TSgt Joseph Pagan, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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