NDAA LIMITATION ON RETIREMENT OF C-130E/H

[Roy]

According to the NDAA as passed by Congress:

\"SEC. 141. LIMITATION ON RETIREMENT OF C-130E/H TACTICAL AIRLIFT AIRCRAFT.

(a) Limitation- The Secretary of the Air Force may not retire C-130E/H tactical airlift aircraft during fiscal year 2008.

( Maintenance of Certain Retired Aircraft- The Secretary of the Air Force shall maintain each C-130E/H tactical airlift aircraft retired during fiscal year 2007 in a condition that will permit recall of such aircraft to future service.\"

If I understand this correctly perhaps there is some hope for rewing/repair of these old birds.

[Herkeng130]

Roy wrote:

According to the NDAA as passed by Congress:

\"SEC. 141. LIMITATION ON RETIREMENT OF C-130E/H TACTICAL AIRLIFT AIRCRAFT.

(a) Limitation- The Secretary of the Air Force may not retire C-130E/H tactical airlift aircraft during fiscal year 2008.

( Maintenance of Certain Retired Aircraft- The Secretary of the Air Force shall maintain each C-130E/H tactical airlift aircraft retired during fiscal year 2007 in a condition that will permit recall of such aircraft to future service.\"

If I understand this correctly perhaps there is some hope for rewing/repair of these old birds.

looks to be the case

[Guest]

Wow !!

This is very interesting.

I can\'t help but wonder if this could really be a reprieve for the life of some of the good old birds, or is this just another in the long line of political deceptions?

[Dan Wilson]

Now correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand the way things work now is a bird is grounded/retired when it hits x number of EBH hours and not necessarily when there is a serious problem.

So in theory, perfectly good aircraft, that are needed are unnecessarily grounded because Lockheed wants to make the older aircraft unproductive and out of the running for budget dollars.

Is that right or way out in left field.

Dan

[Lkuest]

The EBH is a best guess of airworthyness based on years of tests to predict wing fatigue. If a wing is fatigued enough, it will fall apart. You are correct when you say airplanes have been retired without any known serious problems, but it\'s the unknown problems that ground the aircraft. It is uneconomical to do an NDI inspection on every square inch of the wing structure, especially when a wing hits 45,000 EBH. It\'s probably more cost effective to just change a wing out.

There was an aircraft with 48,000 EBH that was taken apart to test the EBH limits, and it was found that the wings had cracks everywhere, so they are just being safe, but in a good way.

[Dutch]

OK! Old fart question. Just what is or are EBH\'S? :S

[Dan Wilson]

Okay, I don\'t know what the initials stand for exactly but the concept is a herk is good for 48K hours of straight air land trash hauling runs, low level, assaults and general tac work decrease that number so you could be bagging aircraft and turning them into beer cans at 30K or earlier instead of 48K because usage turns the 30K into an \"equivalent\" 48K.

What really amazes me is none of this crap happened until big money (lockheed) started getting flak from congress and they wanted to cancel the J model. People can defend lockheed all they want but there ARE ulterior motive at work and they are not even subtle about it.

Like when a couple of years before I retired they came out and said \"all your VMCA speeds are 15-30 knots low, new speeds will be in your new 1-1 BUT YOU CAN USE THE OLD SPEEDS UNTIL THEN\"!!!! Now this is just horsecrap, they aren\'t even trying to play the game because they know they run the air force and can get away with it.

Would I crew one of these \"exceeded EBH\" aircraft for combat and tac work? Hell yes. Is the risk elevated probably but do I really believe lockwasher to give a real answer on just what that risk is, probably about as much as I believe anything bill or hillary has to say (that means NO)

Dan

[HerkPFE]

Dan,

As one who had about 500 hours of flight time in, and was personal friends with the crew of T-130, Lockheed has some deep issues with their wings and center wing boxes. Does anyone remember the different levels and the associated limitations placed on the wings of the \"A\" models?

It is not uncommon to find cracked rainbow fittings on aircraft going through their first PDM.

If you want to read an interesting report, read the NTSB report on T-130 where the majority of the blame sits on Lockheed\'s shoulders for design flaws in their wing box.

Now back to your statement, I would jump in most C-130\'s and take them on a good trash haul.

Best Wishes,

Greg

[US Herk]

EBH = Equivalent Baseline Hours. It is determined by a computer program where the FE inputs all the data (old 151s) online & each segment of the flight is assigned a severity factor to multiply. The \"average\" severity factor for Kirtland T2 is about 5, so over the course of a year, if we fly 1000 hours, it\'s like flying 5000 hours.

HerkPFE wrote:

If you want to read an interesting report, read the NTSB report on T-130 where the majority of the blame sits on Lockheed\'s shoulders for design flaws in their wing box.

I\'ve read the report & lots of other stuff about the early wings. I\'m not convinced it\'s a design flaw, rather, we\'re using the plane for something it wasn\'t designed for. You can call that a design flaw, and to some extent it\'s an accurate statement insofar as current usage certainly exceeds original design parameters, but I think it\'s the USAF\'s fault more than anything (not that I\'m a big fan of lockgreed).

Prior to 1966, Herks didn\'t do much, if any, low-level (other than paratrooper airdrops). MATS was trash haul & troop carrier only & airdrop was all flown Hi-Lo-Hi profile. The biggest structural thing they had to deal with was wake turbulence from formation flying - they flew fingertip Vics & Vics in trail & Vics in Vics.

In the mid-60s, Vietnam & the SA2/SA3 drove low-level tactics & the in-trail formation geometry (more wake turbulence than fingertip). This put added stress on the wings (low-level, primarily) that they hadn\'t envisioned when the aircraft was designed. By then, the wing design had already been updated once & the lessons learned in Viet Nam provided another redesign of the wing later in the \'70s as well. The H3/J-model wing is a different design again & draws on a lot they learned from the SOF CWB (which weighs 1400-1600lbs more than a standard CWB) - which has been very successful.

The fact remains that planes that reach their EBH marks & do get inspected are supporting the engineering assessments of EBH - in other words, the models are pretty close - and you\'d expect them to be with 55+ years to back it up.

[jetcal1]

Don\'t forget that at the time of the orginal design, very little was known about fatigue.

It is possible to design an unlimited life structure but as weight and performance of the aircraft increases, the structural weight also increases.

Structual design is a compromise between useful life and useful load.

If you want a unlimited life structure, you are going to give up payload.

I do wonder where we\'ll be in a few decades with composites.

[Dan Wilson]

If you want to read an interesting report, read the NTSB report on T-130 where the majority of the blame sits on Lockheed\'s shoulders for design flaws in their wing box.

I am not familiar with the T-130 or maybe I know it buy by another name, could you give me some basic details please?

Thanks

Dan

[HerkPFE]

Dan,

T-130 (N130HP) was the fire fighting Herk that had the wings fold during a retardant run.

The entire report is located at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020621X00954&key=1

To paraphrase a little:

\"Metallurgical examination of the center wing box lower skin revealed a 12-inch long fatigue crack on the lower surface of the right wing, with two separate fatigue crack initiation sites at stringer attachment rivet holes. The cracks from both initiation sites eventually linked up to create a single crack. The portion of the wing skin containing the fatigue crack was covered by a manufacturer-installed doubler, which would have hidden the crack from view and, therefore, prevented detection of the crack from a visual inspection of the exterior of the airplane. The Safety Board determined that the probable cause(s) of this accident was the inflight failure of the right wing due to fatigue cracking in the center wing lower skin and underlying structural members. The Board determined that a factor contributing to the accident was inadequate maintenance procedures to detect fatigue cracking.\"

There are not many Herks that I would not climb in and fly.

Merry Christmas all,

Greg

Still stuck in Roswell...till Sunday.

[US Herk]

Get a lot of snow yesterday in ROW, Greg? We got about 4\" here in the ABQ mountains with some drifts over a foot...in fact, I\'m heading out now to shovel some of it!

[HerkPFE]

We got about an inch over night, but it is all melting this morning. The one thing was the wind howled all night to the point that the hotel windows were rattling.

I have a flight out of here at 2pm tomorrow...at least i will be home for the holidays.

Merry Christmas,

Greg

[lownslow]

Equivelent Baseline Hours.

C-130s with different missions are assigned different EBH multipliers depending on the missions they perform. For instance, aircraft that regularly fly heavy gross weight low level mission are assigned a higher multiplier than aircaft that fly orbits. So an aircraft with 30,000 flying hours and a 1.5 EBH multiplier have 45,000 EBH and are therefore grounded.

[Guest]

Is there anything in the system that resets the \'EBH\' clock once an airplane gets a center wing replacement? And if the center wing box has been replaced, are there different formulas for continuing EBH based on the design (variable) type of replacement center wing that was installed?

[C130H2FE]

The EBH is for the center wing box, if the box has been changed the EBH is for the new box. That\'s how the few E\'s that are unrestricted are still flying. In the 80\'s when the Guard was changing outer wings they changed the center wing box too.

My 2 cents