The program, which began in February, has led to growth for NIAR's Aging Aircraft Lab. The lab has already begun hiring new employees, and will double its staff during the course of the program. It has also leased a new facility for acceptance and section extraction of the large KC-135 part shipments.
NIAR’s new 10,000 square foot Structural Teardown Aging Aircraft Research (STAAR) facility, located at the Augusta Airport, will be the first stop in Wichita for these tanker parts. Eventually the parts will make it to NIAR’s Aircraft Structural Testing and Evaluation Center (ASTEC) on the Hawker Beechcraft campus.
With multiple programs in progress, the ASTEC facility isn’t large enough to accommodate all the parts at once.
"We needed a space to lay down large parts from multiple KC-135 aircraft," said Melinda Laubach, program manager and senior research engineer for the Aging Aircraft Lab. "These type of teardown facilities are rare."
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KC-135 Tanker
Courtesy Photo
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The new STAAR facility was leased from the City of Augusta for NIAR by the Advanced Research Technology and Development Group (ARTDG), which will manage and maintain the property.
“ARTDG has been a crucial partner in acquiring and opening the facility," said Dr. John Tomblin, NIAR Executive Director. “Without the quick action of ARTDG and the City of Augusta, we wouldn’t have been able to acquire a facility in time to keep up with all of the KC-135 section shipments.”
Over the last eighteen months, NIAR personnel have worked with personnel from CAStLE and S&K Technologies to develop a 700-page set of structural teardown protocols, which provide step-by-step procedures and documentation requirements for the KC-135 teardown program. NIAR has also validated these protocols on thirty-one teardown sections from the first teardown aircraft.
“Any time you do a teardown, you want to set the rules before you start,” Laubach said.
The 18-month protocol development program was funded by a congressional ad titled “Inspection and Analysis Methods in Aging Military Aircraft: KC-135 Teardown Protocol Development, Validation, and Examination of Structural Details” through Representative Todd Tiahrt, Fourth Congressional District of Kansas. It established the planning framework for the current six-year teardown program.
Now NIAR researchers will begin to thoroughly investigate some of the approximately 300 “hotspots” on the aircraft, which were identified by Boeing and Tinker Air Force Base.
“There are 110 hot spots represented in the pieces we have now,” Laubach said. “And we anticipate more sections soon.”
These sections will be examined using traditional structural teardown examination methods including large scale section extraction, detailed disassembly, chemical coatings removal and non-destructive inspection (NDI). Examples of NDI include close visual inspection using light and low magnification, fluorescent liquid penetrant inspection, and eddy current inspection.
NIAR, S&K and CAStLE will provide results of the investigation to the Air Force, which will compile them and make its decision on the future of the fleet.
