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Show If .1 v r- - COLLECTICO i - ii 1 s 1 ' r . if. ft iilflfllQi ...f Vol. 46 No. 19 Q Hill AFB, Utah B May 14, 1992 ' i t V s ' .- ' ,.- saw ; Tv J I i' Big guns John Pengelly (left) loosens a fastener on a 20mm Gatling gun as Burke Smith feeds a gun barrel through a firing range window. The two, working as weapons repair mechanics in the Commodities Directorate, demonstrated their testing procedure to a group of engineers from a variety of private companies from around the country. If Vx Photo by Gary Hutch A, (gimme by Gary Hatch Hilltop Times editor maintainers at Hill AFB and around the country are now telling Defense Department contract engineers how to design aircraft and 4 First-leve- weapon systems. And the engineers are listening. It's not that the engineers don't know their jobs, it's just that in their busy world of formulas, equay tions and diagrams, they're insulated from the workers frustrations maintenance experience. A group of contract engineers visited Hill April 30 and May 1 to roll up their sleeves and learn from the people who maintain and repair the complex weapon systems they design. An opportunity for this type of feedback, rare nine years ago when these visits were first initiated, fits right in with the total quality principles guiding today's Air Force. of the future. The ideas they spawn are making the planes and weapon systems of tomorrow more relia- 66 l These are things that you wouldn't ever find out if you didn't come out here and talk to the people who work on these systems on a daily basis. day-to-da- Hill 99 John Wilde Wasting house close-to-ho- service me by Frances Kosakowsky Hilltop Times staff Any Hill AFB organization in the market for metal castings should look close to home for them. There's a complete investment casting foundry in Uctif it has been there since Bldg. 511 March of 1991. When the foundry opened for business, its first job was a large production run of wing leading edge brackets for the Fighting Falcon. The shop more than 1,500 parts in just produced F-1- 6 ble and easier to maintain, said CMSgt. Jack Putalavage, Center for Supportability and TechnolAFB, Ohio. ogy Insertion, Wright-Patterso- n a The visits give the engineers quick dose of life on the flight line. "We take them to Northern Alaska in the middle of the winter, bundle them up and walk them out to the planes. We also put them in full chemical gear so they understand the restrictions of vision and movement maintainers face under those circumstances," Putalavage said. Those experiences aren't lost on the engineers. Most major Air Force contractors now have a technician install and remove a piece of equipment in full chemical gear before the company finalizes production a step not previously taken, Putalavage said, as a group of company representatives nodded in B See Blue Two, Page 2, please. agreement. five weeks. When replacement parts are needed, it takes about 90 days just to go through the procurement cycle of getting the invitation to bid out to suppliers and getting their responses, Jon Nickerson, production engineer, said. "And, generally, we can begin delivering the finished product to the buyer in 90 days." Alloys of aluminum, iron, copper, cobalt and nickel base can be cast into a limitless variety of parts that meet or exceed military and aerospace TUIIIU Hi ft Coip reptesentativn These tours, called Blue Two visits, referring to the two stripes many Air Force maintenance workers wear, are changing the shape of the Air Force foundry provides II K.T' I rj" jmm mmm specifications, Nickerson said. "The investment casting system at Ogden Air Logistics Center is a new capability for the Air Force," he said. "It was established to make sure aerospace quality castings could be obtained on a quick turnaround basis and still maintain competitive pricing. "We get such excellent support from the heat treat, tool and die, nondestructive testing and numerically con- trolled programming departments that we can supply our customers in B See Foundry, Page 2, please. i Lessons learned For safety sake Hill's Pest Secretary Cheney offers final report on operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm Page 7 When planning vacations, Workers earn recognition for plan to be safe this summer. Center pullout n their achievements Page 16 .J ' |