Page 3 - Nellis AFB Bullseye 9-18-15

BULLSEYE
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Corrosion shop gives aircraft new ‘shades’
By Airman 1st Class Mikaley Kline
99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev.
— The harsh fluorescent lights shine
brightly upon an F-16 Fighting Falcon
that resembles a child’s unfinished toy
aircraft model.
With half its two-toned brown paint
sanded away and swirls of green under-
neath the paint, the F-16 looked as if it
had been submerged under water for
50 years rather than just coming off the
flightline at Nellis Air Force Base.
The F-16, assigned to the 57th Aircraft
Maintenance Squadron Viper Aircraft
Maintenance Unit, was brought into the
Corrosion shop to undergo a full paint
job. The aircraft was transformed from a
two-tone brown to an arctic paint scheme
consisting of black, gray and white.
“On a standard F-16 like this, it’ll take
us about a week to finish repainting it,”
said Jeff Dezell, 57th Maintenance Group
Corrosion shop lead. “It’s kind of cool
because on a Monday the worst looking
jet in the fleet will come to our shop and
on Friday the best looking jet will go out.
It’s rewarding from that point of view.
It’s like making them brand new again.”
A day or two before going to the Cor-
rosion shop, an aircraft will go to the
wash rack to be cleansed.
“An aircraft will come in on a Monday
morning where it’ll be jacked up and
the gear will be retracted up into the
airplane,” said Dezell. “Next thing we’ll
do is mask off all the areas that don’t
require paint or can’t be painted over.
UPDATE, from page 1 __________
“Our great Air Force Space Com-
mand team continued to make sure
that if you drop a precision weapon on
the other side of the planet, it will hit
where you’re aiming,” he said.
In offensive and defense space con-
trol, Welsh said senior airmen and staff
sergeants are affecting every activity
that occurs in the counter-terrorism
war.
Welsh described the intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance team
as “unbelievable,” noting some 1.6 mil-
lion flying hours with 35,000 ISR Air-
men who support every U.S. military
activity on the globe.
The cyber team, Welsh said, is
broadening its knowledge base with
Airmen who have been involved in
over 9,000 cyber operations, in addi-
tion to defending fellow Airmen and
their networks from security breaches.
Welsh described the Air Force’s
mobility machine as “awesome,” cit-
ing the U.S. air refueling f leet pas-
sage of some 200 million gallons of
fuel, movement of nearly a billion
News
J.J. Ruddell, 57th Maintenance Group Corrosion shop aircraft painter, sprays primer on
an F-16 Fighting Falcon inside a temperature-controlled building on Nellis Air Force Base,
Nev., Sept. 9. The Corrosion shop performs approximately 12 to 15 full paint jobs per year.
After that we’ll start the process of scuff each shift the process takes about a week
sanding the aircraft which is usually a
two to three shift operation.”
Having a swift and efficient team of
aircraft painters in place helps Dezell
determine where they’ll be in the paint-
ing process and on what day of the week
they’ll do certain tasks.
“On Wednesday, we’ll apply the
primer and top coat to the jet,” said
Dezell. “Then on Thursday and Friday
we’ll apply the stencils and local mark-
ings such as the ‘WA’ on the tail or tail
numbers. With four people working on
passengers, and execution of about
900 global aeromedical evacuation
missions for diseased, injured and
severely-wounded Airmen.
“We now have the capability devel-
oped by (mobility) Airmen to actually
do critical surgeries in-flight,” Welsh
said. “Can you imagine?”
Some of the Air Force’s “hidden
gems,” Welsh shared, are the 50,000-
plus Airmen conducting command and
control operations, including airborne
and dynamic targeting at air opera-
tions centers around the globe.
Of his recent visit to the 624th Op-
erations Center at Joint Base San An-
tonio-Lackland, the general reported,
“We now have Airmen who’ve taken
the concept of air operations centers,
ISR and global operations … and are
… developing a way of allocating re-
sources to provide cyber support to
forces from all services, all commands,
all the time, all over the world.”
That concept, he said, was “a Pow-
erPoint slide” three years ago.
Meanwhile, air staff has been devel-
oping the Air Force Future Operating
Concept, which fits into a series of
3Sseptember 18, 2015
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U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Mikaley Kline “So the owning unit decides what color
they would like the aircraft to be painted
based on their needs as well as how many
of that particular paint scheme they might
need,” said Dezell. “We have the Aggres-
sors stationed here, and other than Eiel-
son AFB, Alaska, you wouldn’t see these
to complete.” paint schemes at any other base. We have
paint schemes that they don’t even have
The patterns used on aggressor air- up there. We designed the blizzard paint
craft are supposed to mirror one another. scheme here and it was coordinated into
the technical data based on our original
“The patterns are laid out in the tech- drawings and measurements.”
nical orders, so that what you see on the
bottom is mirrored on the top side,” said The Corrosion shop performs approx-
J.J. Ruddell, a 57th MXG Corrosion shop imately 12 to 15 full paint jobs per year.
aircraft painter. “So if you’re looking up
through the jet, the patterns should be “Every aircraft is supposed to be
translucent. You paint from the darkest painted on a six-year cycle,” said Dezell.
to the lightest color.” “When we’re not doing a full paint, we’re
doing major touch-ups to an aircraft.
There are nine different paint schemes, An aircraft might require a new wing
but of those nine, six are used on F-16s. or stabilizer or a new piece added to it
because the old one was bad. It may not
generate the need for the whole aircraft
to be repainted, but it may come in for
about three days to have that particular
component painted. So, there’s always an
aircraft in here, they’re just not always
being fully painted.”
For the aircraft painters in the Corro-
sion shop, all the painting is done free-
hand with a pattern to help guide them.
“It’s just the swipe of a gun. That’s
where the skill comes in because any-
body can paint a square box,” said Dezell.
“In cutting patterns, that’s where the true
skill of an aircraft painter comes out. The
technical data is a shaded drawing of how
the final product is supposed to look at
the end, plus or minus a foot.”
documents encompassing the service’s missions, however, are not going to
vision statement, while its global vi- change.
sion, reach and power outline the
products the service provides theater “I think the chief of staff of the Air
commanders and national leaders. Force number 35 or 40 is going to be
standing right here — maybe as a ho-
But, according to Welsh, the future logram by then — telling you that the
operating concept is more specific than mission of the United States Air Force
an aspirational document, because it’s is going to stay the same for the next
potentially what the Air Force could 20 years.”
look like in 20 years.
But, Welsh acknowledged, he hopes
The overall intent is to reach toward that future Air Force chief doesn’t re-
the “call to the future,” a 30-year focus port the equipment remains the same,
on research and development, and sci- by stating “We must modernize our
ence and technology against a chang- Air Force.”
ing global landscape.
As such, Welsh and other senior
The Air Force Strategic Master Plan, leaders have been trying in earnest to
Welsh added, is the actual road map for retain the funding for and timelines
getting to these goals. on the F-35A Lightning II, the KC-46
Pegasus, and the long-range strike
“Based on the money we have, what bomber.
are we going to buy, develop, teach
and train … to reach that operating “The secretary has been very faithful
concept,” he said. to these programs,” he said.
The future operating concept will Welsh said the Air Force must con-
be released this week when Air Force tinue funding for its space capabilities,
Secretary Deborah Lee James gives the as well as reinvestments in the nuclear
final approval, Welsh explained. infrastructure and cyber domain.
“You can even get the (application) “If we want to have acquisition re-
for your phone,” the general said. form, we are all going to have to accept
some risk,” Welsh said.
The general said the fundamental