C130K Re-Winging

[ProfessionalStudent]

Interesting article here about C130K re-winging.

Flight International ("http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/02/27/212321/raf-to-cut-c-130k-fleet-and-scale-back-re-wing-plans.html)

"...Between £20m and £100m"
How can any contract have a 400% increase factor? Anither classic case of "Smart Procurement"?

[airborne_artist]

Correct link is http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/02/27/212321/raf-to-cut-c-130k-fleet-and-scale-back-re-wing-plans.html

"The RAF had intended to keep all of its 24 remaining C-130Ks in use until taking delivery of its 25 Airbus Military A400Ms from 2011, but says the "persistently high operational tempo" experienced over the last several years has caused the fatigue life of several platforms to expire early.

The retirement of four aircraft "will have no impact on current operations", it says, noting that some C-130K crews have already been retrained to fly the more modern C-130J."

Can the loss of four airframes really have no impact?

[cornish-stormrider]

of course not, the engineers will wave that magic wand and all the remaining ones will be fixed:ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

[Ian Corrigible]

Was surprised to read that even the AFSOC's newer AC-130Us may need to be grounded due to stress on their center wing boxes associated with higher-than-expected OPTEMPOs.

Spooky's face grounding (http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2007/May/AirForceGunships.htm)

I/C

[ORAC]

DefenseNews: Keeping the C-130s Flying: Center Wing Box Replacements (http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/04/keeping-the-c130s-flying-center-wing-box-replacements/index.php#more)

The USA's C-130E medium transport aircraft first entered service in 1962, so it's no surprise that some are rather the worse for wear. What did surprise people was how many of them were about to fly their wings off - and not just as a figure of speech.

On February 14, 2005, the US Air Force announced that they were grounding nearly 100 C-130E models because of severe fatigue in their wings, including a dozen that had been flying missions in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The C-130 System Program Office at Robins Air Force Base, GA recommended the grounding after inspections of the center wing box structure, which sits atop the fuselage and forms the attachment point for both wings and all four engines, revealed cracks. These kinds of sudden problems come with aging aircraft fleets; as one can see, the effects can be far-reaching.

By November 2006, the USAF had kept 47 aircraft under flying restrictions, plus another 30 completely grounded because of the cracks. Other aircraft are expected to wear out as they fly, however, and the replacement program doesn't expect to get ahead of the "grounding-restriction curve" until 2012.
The USAF prices full center wing box replacement at $6.5-$7 million, and expects to convert about 18 aircraft per year at peak production. By 2020, 155 C-130s will have new center wing boxes from the C-130J production line. Needless to say, the 402nd Aircraft Maintenance Group at Robins AFB is a busy unit.

At least the new contract, which covers a number of unusual C-130 variants as well as the C-130H models, will keep the funding coming....

March 30/07: Lockheed Martin Corp. in Marietta, GA received a $622.6 million firm fixed, time and material, cost-plus-fixed fee, and cost reimbursement – no fee contract. At this time, $81.6 million has been obligated. Solicitations began January 2007, negotiations were complete March 2007, and work will be complete January 2013 (FA8504-07-D-0003).

This contract covers the Center Wing Box Replacement Program for 6 C-130 Hercules variants, and consists of nonrecurring engineering (NRE) support; replenishment spare panel parts, spare parts, bench stock, center wing component modification kits, engineering support for trial kit installs, data, travel, and nonrecurring engineering changes (Delta NRE) for these 6 mission design series:

The C-130H transport. Deliveries of this model began in 1974-1975, and continued through to 1996; over 350 were produced for the USA.

EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft

Special Forces (SOCOM) AC-130U "Spooky" gunship

SOCOM's HC-130N and HC-130P "Kingbird" combat search-and-rescue models

SOCOM's MC-130H Combat Talon II

[Truckkie]

Funny old thing - MOD get quote, contractor finds more work required,MOD can't afford work,fleet cut during highest tempo of ops since Coporate!!!

Only half to be re-winged, the airframes in question are Mk3A's I believe - so fewer war-goers to go around the dets - which means the remaining airframes run out of fatigue life earlier.

The C130K fleet is dead - can we afford to have two K sqns at Lye? It would make sense to me that only the new 'special' sqn needs to operate the remaining C130K Mk1s and Mk3As until the C130J can take over this role.

Close the K OCU and disband LXX sqn. 47 Sqn operates C130Ks until 2012 - personnel there can just accept they will be on the same type for 5 years.

Or - we could just bite the bullet and completely re-wing all 10 C130K war-goers and keep the capability for another 20 years!!!

[Jackonicko]

A year ago, just before Farnborough, Boeing were hoping to present details of their innovative wing fix (along with the AMP avionics upgrade) to the IPT.

Developed as a direct result of the 'in-place' wing box work they did on the C-17, the Boeing scheme did not require wing box removal, and was thus much cheaper than Lockheed's wing box replacement, but effectively re-lifed the airframe.

What happened?

[GasFitter]

How can any contract have a 400% increase factor? Anither classic case of "Smart Procurement"?
Nothing to do with Smart Procurement.

[US Herk]

The UK Defence Logistics Organisation asked industry for expressions of interest to undertake the re-winging work on up to 10 aircraft, which was expected to take between 18 and 24 months and cost £20-100 million ($39-195 million).
I hope that time & cost estimate is for the entire 10 aircraft, but knowing Marshalls, I wouldn't be so sure.

Lockheed claims approximately 9 months & $9M USD for a re-do of the centre wing box which bears the brunt of the load.

If they're just going to re-do the outer wing planks, it seems a bit high...

The AC-130 article mentions the replacement of the CWB in the MC-130H at the bottom. These will hit the wall much sooner than the AC-130 trainwreck...glad to see they've finally allocated money for this.

[SRAM]

Orac I have distant memories of flying back from Oz in early 1975 at a ridiculously slow speed after cracks had been found in another A/C. IIRC the total time on my aircraft, XV214, at the time was less than 6000 hours, how many hours is this centre section good for?

SRAM

[Jackonicko]

I knew I'd read it somewhere!

Flight Daily News, July 06

"Flight Daily News learned that Boeing briefed the appropriate Director of Equipment Capability on its C-130 Avionics Modernisation Programme (AMP) earlier this week, pushing an upgrade of the existing aircraft as the best solution to the RAF’s SF requirement. Many analysts had dismissed this possibility as the existing aircraft are close to reaching the end of their fatigue lives, but Boeing used Farnborough to reveal its ‘secret weapon’ – a Total Life Extension programme that promises to deliver a 30,000 hour extension to the Hercules life.

Boeing has used its experience of working on the C-17 wing box to design an innovative centre wing box refurbishment that does not require removal of the wing or wing box, and which is therefore much cheaper and quicker than centre wing box solutions based on Lockheed’s technical order.

Testing of the centre wing box life extension is expected to be completed this year."

So why wasn't this option pursued?

[Jackonicko]

also see

http://www.air-attack.com/news/news_article/1909/Boeing-Announces-C-130-Total-Life-Extension-Program.html

[US Herk]

In addition, the C-130 AMP meets U.S. Special Forces requirements
That's not quite true based on my knowledge of what it would & would not do. Additionally, if what I heard from a Flight-Test Engineer is accurate, AFSOC pulled out of AMP & issued a stop-work order about two months ago. They're not happy with Boeing.

In the off chance the MoD were to contract Boeing, I'd give you this bit of advice - be sure & have a very thorough contract written. Boeing are infamous for meeting the letter of the contract & not the intent of the customer.

I have no knowledge of their "patch" or "upgrade" to CWB that would preclude having to pull it out & replace it, so can't speak to that.

As for how many hours a CWB is good for? That's a sticky subject - the answer is 30,000-45,000, but it's not that simple. USAF uses something called "equivalent baseline hours" to gauge REAL flying. So when the Air Engineers complete the post-flight engineering paperwork, there is a lot of maths to do. A baseline hour is based on straight & level unaccelerated flight at some mid-weight (135K in old money). If you do anything else, you're adding "unforseen" fatigue and the hours get muliplied by a variable determined by weight & flight regime. Heavyweight (or worse, overweight) operations whilst low-flying carry the largest penalty. So frames with 7-9K hours on them are rated at 25-28K hours due to usage - and they've got the engineering data to back this up, coupled with USAF inspections which confirm this.

At 30K EBH, there are restrictions placed on the frame (at least in the USAF). These restrictions can be removed based on a very robust & active inspection regime which costs GEs many man hours. At 40 or 45K EBH (I forget which), they are grounded & no inspections can fix it. New CWB is required.

AFSOC is feeling this more because our planes are heavier to begin with - Zero Fuel Weight ranges between 95K-115K depending on model...

The high ops tempo just makes all this happen that much quicker.

[Been There...]

That's not quite true based on my knowledge of what it would & would not do. Additionally, if what I heard from a Flight-Test Engineer is accurate, AFSOC pulled out of AMP & issued a stop-work order about two months ago. They're not happy with Boeing.
Interesting as the Lockheed/Boeing AMP presentation which was given at Avionics 2007 in Amsterdam at the start of March didn't mention this fact at all. Had I known I could have added it to the rest of the awkward questions I asked them :ok: