Team Dover C-5s return to the fight

Senior Master Sgt. Ralph Ritter, 512th Maintenance Squadron maintenance support flight; Keith Frye, 436th MXS repair and reclamation foreman; and Michael Kealty, 436th MXS work lead 10 crew lead, inspect a C-5M Super Galaxy’s nose landing gear during a maintenance operations check July 28, 2017, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. During the stand-down, Team Dover maintainers conducted extensive C-5M nose landing gear inspections to ensure that the gears properly extend and retract. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia)

Team Dover C-5s return to the fight

Maintainers connect a hydraulic hose to a C-5M Super Galaxy undergoing a nose landing gear maintenance operations check July 28, 2017, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Maintenance Airmen from the Air Force’s three other C-5 bases travelled to Dover AFB to learn the processes undertaken here at Dover. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia)

Team Dover C-5s return to the fight

Master Sgt. Duane Lewis, 512th Maintenance Squadron aero repair craftsman, right, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Kim, 436th MXS aerospace maintenance journeyman, operate a hydraulic pumping unit to jack-up a C-5M Super Galaxy undergoing an operations check July 28, 2017, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The C-5M’s nose end was jacked up several inches so that the landing gear could fully extend and retract. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia)

Team Dover C-5s return to the fight

A C-5M Super Galaxy’s nose landing gear undergoes a maintenance operations check July 28, 2017, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Two C-5M nose landing gear malfunctions within a 60-day period during landings at Naval Air Station Rota, Spain, halted all Dover C-5M flight operations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia)

C-5 MX community comes together at Dover

Published Aug. 22, 2017
By Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia
436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- The Air Force’s C-5M Super Galaxy community came together at Dover AFB to resolve a maintenance issue that stood-down the entire fleet.

“We were the first and only base to have engineering support and guidance into how to resolve this issue,” said 1st Lt. Sophia Rizzo, 436th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron assistant aircraft maintenance unit officer in charge. “It was critical for our maintenance partners to come and not only receive that subject matter expert guidance, but also see the real-world application of those procedures.”

Six maintainers from the Air Force’s other three C-5 bases travelled to Dover AFB July 19-21, 2017, to learn the processes undertaken that corrects the issue. Two Airmen from each base came from Travis AFB, California, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, and Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts.

A Dover C-5 stand-down was directed by the Air Mobility Command commander July 17 following a second malfunction of the nose landing gear within a 60-day period.

"My top priority is safety and readiness of our fleet," said Gen. Carlton D. Everhart II, AMC commander. "Our Airmen are working deliberately and methodically at Dover and across the command to identify and resolve any issues impacting the C-5 fleet. We have put measures in place to ensure aircrew safety and reduce wear-and-tear on the aircraft."

Maintainers at Dover have been critical to quickly assessing and bringing about potential solutions. The issue was determined to be the two ball screw drive assemblies on the nose landing gear. These BSDs work in tandem to retract and extend the nose landing gear. If a single ball screw drive assembly is not operational and causes binding, the gear cannot operate and will stall the extension or retraction process.

According to Keith Frye, 436th Maintenance Squadron repair and reclamation foreman, receiving maintainers from other bases to assist in a process does not happen very often.

“The personnel from the other bases were here for training on what to listen for in the gearboxes and ballscrews with us and the engineering team,” said Frye.

Not only were these maintainers able to learn the process, they also assisted in expediting Team Dover’s requirement to inspect and replace the BSDs if necessary.

“We had 12 aircraft here at Dover at the time,” said Rizzo. “That's 24 ball screw drive assemblies, which typically take us 16 hours to remove and replace. Having those additional experienced bodies provided us some extra manpower to get the job done.”