Lkuest

I was at a briefing on base several years ago about the "new" C-130J being adopted by the AD Air Force. One of the briefers was Nguyen, and he did introduce himself as one of the developers of the defensive systems on the C-130J. He also said he was on the plane at the front gate on its last flight out of Veitnam, "although it looked different back then, with the 3-bladed propellers." As fate would have it, there was another person in the audience who shared part of the story. A retired General was at Thailand when the plane landed, and remembered seeing the people pour out of the plane.

Small world.

Well!!.It is quiet on the front so, I am gonna ask the question. Hope I won't be ridiculous!!.........Auto throttle!!!.....does it exist now on the beast!!!.............................John Boy:)

From what I hear, the aircrew can set a desired airspeed, and the autopilot will control the engine power to keep the airspeed steady, by moving the throttles.

AMPTestFE is right about the engine being similar to a torque converter. Your torque converter in your car is also a set of stators and rotors with blades, and just uses fluid inertia to rotate the stator stage which moves your car. When the rotor stage (attached to the engine side) gains enough speed, the fluid can no longer squeeze between the rotor and stator blades without rotating the stator stage with the rotor. This rotation transfers torque to the transmission, which translates torque into motion to your driveshaft, then your wheels.

The J-model engine, the AE2100D3 (civilian designation since the Air Force doesn't own the engine) uses what's called a dual-spool turbine, which means it has two turbine assemblies, but still has four stages. The first two stages are tied together, and they turn the compressor and accessories exclusively. The final two stages of the turbine are tied together, and they only rotate the gearbox, which in turn, rotates the propeller. Turbofans and Turboshaft engines have been using this arrangement for many years now, and the J-model engine heavily resembles a Turboshaft engine like the T-64 engine used in the H-53 helicopter. I'd imagine it would be a lot harder to decouple too since the prop isn't turning the entire engine, just a gearbox and two stages of turbine blades.

Yep, SEFE=Stand. Eval Flight Engineer

Good news is, I believe, the Electronic Valve Housing is gaining momentum in replacing these relics. Much higher reliability and accuracy, with or without the 8 blades.

I'll believe we are getting them when I see them. They've been talking for years. The latest rumors I heard was H1's get the electronic valve housing, and H2's and above get the 8-blade and AMP. The NP2000 is supposed to pay for itself within 5 years, which would make me think they are planning on retiring the H-1's in 5 years. If that is the case, why modify the H1's with anything in the first place. I don't think anybody knows what's going on right now. It would be great, but we'll see.

The cams (mentioned above) are used to position the "Back Up" valve in the valve housing which ports pressure to allow the low pitch stops to retract.

Here is an extract from my Lockheed Engine manual, too bad the engine manual is the only one I kept when I retired. I thought I had given them all away and found this one hanging out in the attic a couple of years ago

That sounds like a better explanation. I've rebuilt a coupe of valvehousings, but it was quite a few years ago, so it's all fuzzy. Thanks Dan.

I'm a little rusty on my Valve Housing internals, but I'll take a crack at it. The pressure doesn't ramp up that high in the low pitch stop until the Beta Set Cam and the Beta Followup Cam inside the Valve Housing differ. The Beta Set Cam is basically your throttle movement, your "desired blade angle", and your Beta Followup Cam represents your "current actual blade angle." When you retard the throttle to flight idle, the Beta Set Cam sets the blade angle to 17.5 degrees. The beta followup cam will read 25 degrees because of the low pitch stop. There is a difference, but not enough to build up enough pressure to retract the LPS levers. As soon as you move the throttle in the ground range, the blade angle difference between desired and actual makes the system pressure increase enough for the LPS to retract. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but that's the basics of it.

We had this problem over in Kaf in the middle of summer with the E model with a gtc. The big problem is the alt is high and high out side air temp, the gtc doesn't put out the same performance as it does in cooler temp and lower alt. so their isn't much you can do for this unless you use the fuel enrichment system to have a shorter spool up time.

Darrell

I think this is a horrible idea. Fuel enrichment shortens the turbine life, and should only be used under extreme cold conditions where the engine will not spin up at all. I think the flight crews might use it for taxi starts, but I'm not 100% on that. I remember someone talking about having the system removed altogether because you don't really need it. If you are at high altitude or high outside air temperature, you are allowed to exceed the starter duty cycle. Never use enrichment!

I agree with pjvr99 about fuel toppings. If you are hitting that, your power won't increase until the rpm drops. Here's the rub. The throttle anticipation check states that the RPM isn't supposed to increase more than 2% during the check, but another TO states that rpm spikes up to 6% are allowed during throttle movement as long as RPM corrects within the normal amount of time. I personally don't care about a little lag as long as the crew doesn't have directional control problems, but I also know the crew tends to move the throttles a little slower than I do, so they shouldn't have this problem. You may not be able to duplicate this problem as well during a maintenance run because the stagnant air slows the prop down quicker. You might ask if you can go up with the crew during the touch and go's to see exactly how quickly they are moving the throttles and exectly how much the engine is lagging. If everything is within limits and the crew isn't having problems keeping the plane straight, I'd say there isn't a problem. If they are having problems though, the problem is most likely with the prop.

If you are having a shortage of Valve Housings, you might swap them between props and see if the problem follows.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the engine allowed to start slow under desert operations and high outside air temp? I thought 95 degrees was the number, but I can't remember for the life of me. The FI states that if manifold pressure drops below 20psi during start, the fault is in the GTC. The next steps are to ops check the horsecollar valve, inspect the 5th and 10th bleed valves at 3 and 9 o'clock for proper operation, borescope the turbine, then adjust prop blade angles. We all know the FI's ability to solve a problem can be spotty at times, but it's a place to start anyway.

From what I read in the base paper, it was a C-130 from the 777 out of Balad taking passengers to some other airfield when the "main" hydraulic system (utility) sprung a leak and made a hydraulic fluid haze in the cargo compartment while loosing several gallons. The loads had the passengers don the O2 masks, then manually extended the landing gear. The passengers and crew were seen by medical professionals on landing, then the passengers were taken to their destination by another C-130 from the 777.

None of this is a direct quote, just what I remember from the LRAFB newspaper, the Combat Airlifter.

It's probably a placard mistake. 63-7829 has had WC-130E on that dataplate for a while now, and that's just a slick. I'm sure there are many more mistakes out there, especially on planes that tend to flip flop a lot like this one.

I have heard about this problem happening about three times on Little Rock aircraft over the years, and every time it seems the Valve Housing fixed it, so since you have already changed that, I'd have to say my condolences on having to work a crazy problem. The NTS system sounds like a good lead, but also, just for kicks, I'd start the engine null and see what happens. Remember the engine changes to Normal limiting during upshift. I could also guess internal leakage in the prop, but that would be a shot in the dark, and there is always the possibility of a malfunctioning fuel control, but I'm sure you've already considered that as well. Like Skip and tenten said, the NTS system looks likely, but I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure where to look next if that doesn't fix it. Good luck.

Last thing I saw was Ramstein, Yokota, 2 sq's at Dyess and 41 Sq at LRF plus 48 Sq at LRF, schoolhouse, all to J's.

50th has H's and 53 and 61 to get H's from Dyess.

It would make sense to me to give the Yokota H's to the 62nd for training, not this plane grab?

Bob

The latest rumor is that the 62nd is outright closing within several years. I also believe they might be retiring H1's soon, but I don't know how solid that rumor is.

Reading this thread and trying to figure out where the line is drawn between a late E model and an early H model is kind of confusing, so I had to read the production list in the Herkapedia. If it is correct, nothing after '72 is an E-model, and everything that left the factory with -15 engines (1964 HC-130H's, etc.) is an H-model (with rare exceptions). That's the only way I can keep them straight is if they were equipped from the factory with -15's. Also, our GTC job guide, the 1C-130E-2-49JG-00-1-1 shows that it is applicable to all C-130H AF73-01580 thru AF73-01599.

I think the AF should call them E's because of the similarities, but all the '73 models officially carry the H designation.

LR should straighten their Maintenance out to keep more acft in comission. I'm not banging the worker bee"s just supervision and supply.

I'm not trying to start trouble, but I'm not sure you are very informed as to how LR does maintenance, as opposed to what you are used to in the Guard or Reserve. When someone dimes out active duty like that, I feel I need to stand up to tell the other side's story.

I have worked with guard units before, and I am never going to bad-mouth their maintenance practices, they have always been very accomodating, but they are not the mythological creatures you make them out to be when compared to Active Duty maintainers. There are gems and germs wherever you work, and I can list some specific examples of problem aircraft we got from the guard. The GTC on 1824 was pissing all over the ground when we got it. 2358 came to us with a popped 627 filter button (good BPO crew chiefs), an engine that wouldn't rotate (loose cannon plug in the firewall), and FOD damage in the compressor. When we got 0520 and 0521 from their respective guard units, they both looked pretty, but they both turned into hangar queens immediately after they landed at LR due to electrical problems and other issues. That and the engine rigging was quite a bit off. I am not complaining about any of these things as they are normal problems with these aircraft, but when you mention aircraft not being up to "Guard Standards", I don't quite know what you mean. Because we have Technical Manuals governing all the maintenance we do, all the standards should be the same.

As far as LR straightening up our maintenance practices, I didn't know there was a problem. Two weeks ago we flew all the 40+ year old airplanes our aircrews could take, and we did it with a 100% MC rate. Not bad with the Active Duty's low standards. That doesn't even touch all the Air Force awards we win on a yearly basis such as the 2009 Maintenance Daedalian Award and the AF Outstanding Unit Awards we've won for about 6 of the last 7 years running, all because of our ability to put the ageing aircraft in the air and keep them there. Every time we have an ORI team come through, they leave impressed with our maintenance practices. Maybe they have low standards too.

If you want to look at people to blame for retiring aircraft early, you might want to look at the aircrews. Every time you land an airplane hard, overtorque the motors, or loose flying events due to not understanding the aircraft instruments and limitations, you add EBH time to the aircraft that you didn't need to, which is what ultimately grounds aircraft. There is nothing we can do about that. Several years ago, we retired 64-0519 due to high time. This was when we started the EBH program back up. We inspected all of our aircraft for wing cracks, and we didn't find any on 519, but we retired it anyway (still in use as a ground trainer). I don't know what Maintenance, Supervision, or supply could have done to keep that one flying. It's EBH time had come.

Like I said, I don't want to start any trouble, but when you stand on your soap box bashing Active Duty's maintenance practices, you should probably make sure your soap box isn't full of hot air.

So now we'll send the "oldest and worst airplanes" to Little Rock to replace the what, younger and more capable E's headed to the Boneyard??? Gotta love politicians...

Don't worry. They're just squeezing the last bit of life out of the E's, though I don't know where you're going with saying the E's are younger and more capable. They are older, and the wings are coming up on their time. We are retiring them left and right for high-time. We are "scheduled" to get our first H's in the next fiscal year at the training squadron, and I believe that goes for AMC too. Our first rumor was that we were getting the Dyess H's, but the latest rumor is we are getting Guard H-2's. Basically, no one knows exactly what is going to happen until it happens, so more to come on that. They are also "talking" about pushing forward with the AMP mods on all H-2's and above, same with the NP2000 prop, but they haven't decided if ARK ANG is going to be the exclusive training unit for those or if the Reserve or Active Duty will pitch in with AMP training. There are lots of changes coming in the Herk world right now, and I'm sure much of it will benefit the fleet. As far as I know, the driver behind all this change other than wing fatigue and keeping a smaller supply footprint supporting all different models, is to allow the fleet to fly through European airspace (new nav restrictions established and enforced) while at the same time modernizing the fleet for increased reliability/capability. The E's would cost too much to modify to European standards and at the same time repair the wings and maintain 40+ year old airframes. To put this into context, besides our B-52 fleet, the C-130 has the oldest average fleet in the inventory, excluding the very small fleets of very special aircraft.

BTW, Gen. Schwartz is the first Herk pilot to serve as Chief of Staff.

Looking at a schematic, the enrichment valve fuel gets ported back into the fuel control, so I suppose that is a possible cause, but first I would change the ignition relay and another 50psi switch for good measure in case the first new one was bad in the same way. I have seen ignition relays fail partially before, and from what you said, you haven't changed it yet.

If this problem is only happening in LSGI, and the ignition relay is actuated because of RPM dropping below 65%, then technically what you have is either a Lean Blowout or a Bogdown.

A Lean Blowout is a flameout caused by too-lean of a fuel mixture, usually in LSGI. Possible causes are TD Amp (seen this at least three times), Fuel Control misadjusted (Min-Flow, not to be confused with LSGI RPM) or clogged fuel system (sheared ADH, failed fuel pump/fuel control, clogged fuel nozzles).

A Bogdown is a condition usually caused by too much fuel in the Fuel/Air mixture caused by an eroded compressor blades and vanes, eroded turbine blades and vanes, air leaks in the bleed air system, dirty compressor, FOD damage, excessive propeller blade angle, Speed Valve malfunction, or dirty or clogged pressure probes.

I suppose the Geneva Loc could cause this problem, but if the engine never dies at power, you can rule that one out (engine needs more fuel at power). The NTS plunger is cammed out below Flight Idle, so you can rule that one out too.

If you have access to Air Force Job Guides, I suggest looking at the 1C-130H-2-71JG-00-1 wp 71-00-20 ENGINE POWER LOSS FLAMEOUT/BOGDOWN CHECKLIST.

Definately check backpressure like Ronc said. Common culprits are the External Scavenge Oil Filter (some people like to damage the buttons so they don't pop), Fuel Heater/Strainer assembly, Oil Cooler, and possibly the #2 Bearing Labrynth Seal. I am sure there are more causes that I can't think of right off the top of my head, but it all depends on where the oil is venting through. You could just have a bad check valve and are overservicing the oil tank.

If it only vents on climbout, and the oil quantity stays steady at altitude and descent, I would suspect the Fuel Heater/Strainer assy since it has an altitude compensator inside of it. Since you already changed the pressurizing valve, the F/H/S is what I would go with if the backpressure test shows nothing.

It's probably just a misunderstanding. You tell a guy a plane got a black letter in 2007, meaning sometime in 2007, and what the guy hears is that the plane got a black letter for the year 2007. Sometimes maintainers forget how to talk to people who don't work on airplanes. You got to spell everything out.

How do you perform a TD-valve anticipation check?

Hello C-130 world; bright question: what's the max TIT difference between each engine staticly......

The Thermocouples are not designed to be accurate statically. Also, they have holes that airflow runs through to deliver the heat, so no airflow=who cares what they read. We have had flight crews write-up this before, and we just sign it off. There is no limitation for it, and we inspect thermocouples enough to where this shouldn't be a problem. Now if there are other indications of thermocouple failure, I'd be more than happy to investigate it, but troubleshooting static TIT is a waste of time.

Also, Military Takeoff TIT is set on the -15 TD Amp to 1077 degrees, and the limit is 1067-1083. I thought is was understood that the Military doesn't mind lowering Turbine life for the sake of better takeoff performance. It's more cost effective for the civilians to keep their 501D cooler.

If you are being initiated into the Herks, I hope you enjoy lots of preventative maintenance and lots of safetywire.

If it is an ongoing problem with no solid solution, you might want to look at the type of fuel your aircraft are using. The higher quality fuel, the longer your fuel system components will last, and the fewer problems you will have. Definately though, check your null starts like Dave said. The TD system can be very tricky. We had a couple of planes recently have abnormal start TIT's caused by a faulty AC instrument inverter. Also, as with many engine problems, look at all the problems the engines are having. I get cold starts all the time caused by cold TIT gauges, but they might be fine as soon as I'm ready to go to power. Most of the time though, they are a little slow there too, and you will be able to tell it is bad by either swapping gauges or doing the Brake Lock Check to see if it is low along with every other TD check.

Would you perform an engine run with a drybay cover, AC panel, or engine cowling removed? The JG says all the panels must be secured, but you can use your general aircraft knowledge to justify your actions. I've done a max power engine run with the door removed, but I've also been told to do an engine run with open bleed air lines and didn't.

The job guide also tells you to start up all 4 engines, so would you start them all up for a #3 leak check? It's one of those things you just have to use your own judgement on.

At the end of the flying day the way I closed the oil tank so valve was to pull the T handle with only DC power on the acft. This precluded unnecessarly exercising the prop feather motors. With the valve closed would then pull the oil tank so valve cbs. I did this for the most part so as to preclude having to service engine oil right away when I really wanted to get on with the post flight/recovery. However, as you say this also prevents oil from leaking into the power section if there is a leaky check valve, a not uncommon occurance. The best part was I could service eng. oil the next morning at my leisure after which would reset the so valve cbs. On more than one instance took grief from flt. line supervision when they saw me servicing oil knowing the bird had landed the previous evening.

That's a great idea, if you don't mind opening up the cowlings to verify the oil shutoff valves opened back up after resetting the c/b. I've ran into a few that like to close, but hate to open again. The Job Guide used to say you had to visually verify that it opened, then someone did a Form 22 to say you could instead listen for it to open. I've run into a couple that would partially open, so I think the new T.O. change is a horrible idea. Also, I've cranked a motor with zero oil pressure, and all the c/b's were pushed in. Thankfully I caught the problem when I was supposed to, during start.