Nimbev #1820,
I was one of six techies who were the founding members of the Corrosion Control Team (CCTV/Tank Rats) at Colerne, in late 1972. Our task was to "blend out" corrosion in the wings (particularly the fuel tanks), take a full measure of such blends, and produce a map of the (damage) resulting. This allowed the structural authority to decide the status, and future operability of the wings in the aircraft. I well remember one Saturday evening (yes, we worked weekends too) using a 30,000 RPM air grinder on a small "bleb" of exfoliation in the No3 Dry bay, as soon as a small amount of pressure was applied to the head, the grinder, then my hand disappeared through the wing (the titanium heat shields were removed at that time to allow external inspection). It resulted in an 8 inch diameter hole through the bottom of the mainplane, I believe this might have been the damage subsequently shown to the delivery crew. One thing for certain, the corrosion, as I understood it, was not the product of Cladosporium Resinae, or any other external influence. ISTR at the time that most in the engineering world clearly identified the corrosion as developing from within the material. The thinking, even at that time, was that the C130 had a finite design life, vastly short of that envisaged by the politicians who decided to buy i Having spent many hours "blending" I have to say that the way it went was as follows;
We first did a survey of the interior of the fuel tanks, all signs of degradation(often a "bleb" of 1/16 of an inch diameter) were logged and recorded. We then began the rectification. Using a fine emery on the grinder to start we often found that as we worked the 1/16 bleb became a 2 inch diameter crater. When the corrosion was removed, we honed (polished) the resulting pit, then measured and recorded the result. As the outside of the wing was similarly treated, the resulting map gave a decent indication of structural degradation.
I was posted to Akrotiri in 1973, thankfully, but I understand that the whole fleet had the wings replaced not long after. As a result, by the time I returned to Albert, all was well.
Greenknight has some valid points about USAF, etc, experience with the C130. The C130K was a "different beast" to anything the U.S. Forces used. Many avionics systems were replaced, and subsequently their electrical supply systems etc. The -15 Allisons were different again from the more standard -7As of its C130E predecessor (as was the C130H from the K). Either way, I doubt any poster on here would deride either version of this fabulous aircraft. Wherever I've been fortunate enough to travel around the globe, it's always been a pleasure spending time debating the engineering problems of the C130, of all varieties, at the end of the day with fellow support people, though, there's not many techies I've met who dislike the aircraft. Sorry if I've bored anyone with tecky stuff, but I felt it was relevant to how this discussion is developing.
Smudge
