Air Support – Before it’s Overhead

Listen. I’m not at all interested in defending against the Chair Force digs or the accusation that the USAF isn’t really a military branch. Most of the ribbing comes from the fact that most of us have never lived in a mud-filled foxhole. Fair point. I’m also pretty sure that there is a large percentage of Army and Marine personnel who have never lived in a foxhole either. In my 38-year career, I probably spent more time in 12-man GP tents than I did permanent structure barracks and even less time in hotels. In any case, the USAF is the only military branch that figured out how to get their officers to do 99% of the fighting. We send the pilots off to battle, while the enlisted folks go have a beer and a nap. Other than additional Combat/Hazardous Duty pay, E-6s in every branch get the same paycheck. 

So, Chair Force is cool with us – except with our Generals who are insecure and get their feelings hurt by the other branches Generals and Admirals making fun of them. Thanks to your Generals and Admirals we now have PT uniforms and an Airman’s Creed to prove that we are a military branch. Oh, and our Generals volunteered us for convoy duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to prove a point and got a few people killed in the process. What a pointless point that was. It was like giving an IT tech a few days of training and then putting them on an oil rig crew. It was a criminal thing to do. By the same token, I wouldn’t put some Army infantry guy on my F-16 and tell him to launch it. The chances are very high that he would make one misstep and get sucked down the engine and instantly become ground meat.

Now admittedly most of the comments are good-natured, but there are some that are serious. Again, I don’t care. I’ve had so many people say that the Army and Marines have their own air support and don’t need the USAF. That’s fine by me too. Honestly, it’s less work for us and our Ops Tempo would be greatly reduced. And if the current news is correct, the USAF is divesting itself of the ground attack mission, and training plans will only require pilots to be familiar with the mission. And we all know what happens when the Pentagon says we just need to be familiar with something. Yep, it’s a CBT or an e-mail with a read receipt, or a 15-minute annual briefing. So, the Army and Marines may get their wish since it looks like the USAF is getting its’ way and has preliminary permission to phase out the A-10 Warthog.

But I digress. The main thing I wanted to do with this article is to explain what goes on in the background before that USAF air support arrives overhead. And for the most part, it doesn’t matter what type of aircraft or which branch because military aircraft are all very similar on a basic level. Some of the equipment and procedures vary but usually, aircraft mechanics can transition between branches and aircraft types with relative ease. As an example, I was supporting an airshow once and a Marine Harrier broke down. The Navy sent a team to fix it, but they were all electricians and avionics people, and the aircraft was having a mechanical problem with the nose landing gear. They had no experience at all in that system and if I remember correctly, they were all F-18 troops. So, we got the manual sent to us via fax, and a buddy and I did most of the work while the Navy guys signed the paperwork.

Anyway, I’m going to explain what goes on behind the scenes to have air support overhead without getting too technical. I’d just like to give you a sense of the effort involved. I should also add that it will be from a USAF fighter/attack aircraft perspective, which is where I spent 38 years as an aircraft Crew Chief. For readabilities sake, I’ll just write individual paragraphs about a sampling of some of the critical items. 

Tires. Unlike your car, these have to go from zero rotation to 160 miles an hour (F-16 depending on aircraft weight) in an instant when the aircraft touches down. And they have to spin up to about the same speed on takeoff. They are filled with nitrogen and pressurized to 320 psi. Pressures are checked daily using calibrated gauges. The main gear tires wear quickly and normally get replaced about every twenty landings. Because of the stresses they undergo, they get inspected before and after every flight for damage and remaining tread.

A blowout on takeoff could cause an aircraft to veer off the runway with subsequent complete loss of the aircraft. Not to mention all the live bombs and munitions that would be involved in the post-crash fire. An Mk 84 bomb can be lethal up to half a mile away from the detonation point and if an aircraft crashes and catches fire, those bombs will probably cook off. The tires could also fail because the split wheels were not built up properly, or the tire and wheel assembly was not installed on the aircraft correctly. And this would mean one less aircraft overhead for troops in contact. 

The F-16 is a fly-by-wire aircraft, which means that there are no direct mechanical connections between the cockpit controls and the flight control surfaces on the wings and tail. Those surfaces are controlled by three independent flight control computers that have to agree with each other when the aircraft starts up. If they don’t, then the pilot gets a flight computer failure message, and the aircraft won’t be allowed to fly. In fact, some more modern aircraft won’t let you advance the throttles to takeoff power with certain fail messages. Even if the flight control computers on the F-16 are working fine, if they sense a flight control isn’t responding correctly, they will trip a fail message. Something as simple as a slightly worn bolt can cause this. 

Engine start. On the F-16 there is a small jet engine called the Jet Fuel Starter that is used to start the big engine. If it fails, then you aren’t going anywhere. There are no jumper cable provisions. What starts the JFS? Well, it’s a combination of a little battery, a computer, and some stored hydraulic pressure that turns a little hydraulic motor. If the electrical plug on that battery is loose, or the electrical connector pins are a little dirty or worn out, the JFS won’t start. If the hydraulic accumulator pressures are depleted, it won’t start. If the computer goes bad, it won’t start. 

Hydraulic systems. If they aren’t working correctly, then the flight controls and landing gear won’t work. What could cause that? Improper servicing, a clogged filter, a kinked line, a failing hydraulic pump, a stuck valve, and many others.

Main electrical power is supplied by a generator mounted to a part of the engine and it supplies way more power than your house uses – unless you are crypto mining. Because it’s a fly-by-wire aircraft it must have a working generator. There is a limited life emergency backup system for emergency use. If the main generator fails in flight, then the pilot has about 15 mins to get the airplane on the ground, with the only other option being to eject. All of the instruments and radios need that generator. Even the system to drop the bombs, fire the missiles and gun uses electricity and computers. And all of that is carried by miles of small wires and hundreds of electrical connectors with pins smaller than a #2 pencil lead. A little water or dirt on one of those pins can cause a malfunction in that circuit which could lead to an unflyable aircraft or a bomb that fails to drop. Or it might drop but not arm. The electrical system often powers the hydraulic and fuel pumps and valves on the aircraft.

Pilot oxygen. Five liters of oxygen are carried in liquid form and then converted to gas for the pilot to breathe. If the pipes, hoses, and regulator are not functioning or fail in flight, the pilot could pass out at altitude from hypoxia and eventually die. 

A failure in the pressurization system could have the same outcome. The pressurization system also powers the G-suit which the pilot needs to keep from blacking out in dogfighting maneuvers. It also heats and cools the cockpit and cools all the avionics which generate lots of heat. Too much heat and they stop working, way too much heat and they can catch on fire.   

The fuel system is comprised of fuel tanks, pumps, valves, and filters. Failures in those can result in the engine going quiet. And since the F-16 only has one engine….

And speaking of engines, the F-16 has either a GE or Pratt & Whitney turbofan engine capable of producing about 28,000 pounds of thrust. At 500 mph this is about 38,000 horsepower. This is produced by hundreds of spinning blades turning at about 12,000 rpm. One small nick in a blade from a tiny rock can cause a crack in one of these fan or compressor blades. If not found by maintenance, it can sometimes cause the blade to break off in just one flight. And one broken blade can cause a chain reaction that breaks all the blades and vanes behind it. The result is an engine that stops running, or worse, liberates blades that puncture fuel tanks or lines, with explosive results. The normal internal temperatures in certain sections of the engine can reach 2,500 F.  Again, there are hundreds of failures that the engine could experience.  

Rather than boring you with more of the same, let’s just say that there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong and cause an aircraft to be grounded, crash, or not accomplish the assigned mission. Fortunately, they are designed to be robust, reliable, and have redundancies. But it doesn’t take long for a neglected aircraft to start breaking down and becoming unreliable. That’s why the aircraft are inspected before and after every flight and every so many hours are taken apart, inspected, and worn-out parts replaced. 

So, what happens when aircraft are scheduled for a mission, and they break at the very last minute when the crews are already in the aircraft and engines are about to start or already running? There are maintenance people assigned to what’s called Red Ball Teams. They are from the different maintenance specialties, and when the type of failure is identified then that team is called to the aircraft where they try to fix it on the spot. If it can’t be fixed quickly enough, then the pilot goes to the spare aircraft with hopefully only a few minutes delay. If troops are in imminent danger, then the flight may not wait, or we may have a hot spare which is an extra jet/pilot which starts with the others but shuts down once the others get off the ground with no issues. 

Modern fighter jets are incredibly complex with tens of thousands of high-tech components all crammed into a small space. That’s not to say that Navy ships and Army equipment are not just as complex, I’m sure they are, but the weight and space requirements are way more restrictive and critical in fighter aircraft. For instance, in one new aircraft program, I was in, they would spend tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of labor hours redesigning components to save less than a pound of aircraft weight.

The main job that I and my peers have in USAF aircraft maintenance is to know these aircraft inside and out so that they can fly every mission they are tasked with to 100% and bring the crew safely back, sometimes 4-6 times a day. And when they break it’s up to us to get them fixed and back in service as quickly as possible. Because if we don’t, then good guys on the ground or in the air might not survive. 

And it’s not unusual to be working non-stop 14 hours a day 7 days a week during real-world deployments. Inspecting jets, servicing, arming, launching, recovering, inspecting, fixing the ones that come back broken, and then starting all over again. It’s high tempo and high tempo and high-stress work with higher than normal divorce, alcoholism, and suicide rates. 

Oh, I didn’t mention yet that there are hundreds of ways that an aircraft can maim or kill you as a mechanic. And they happen in a heartbeat. Ingested into a running engine, blown over, and thrown hundreds of feet down the concrete by the engine exhaust. Crushed by hydraulic components, crushed under falling parts, death by falling off the aircraft, accidental ejection, crushed under closing canopies, burned by hot exhausts, and exposure to toxic chemicals. Electrocution, being impaled, amputation by moving components, or a parted high-pressure hydraulic line. Death from exploding high-pressure gaseous cylinders, or faulty munitions. Burns from fuel or liquid oxygen. Exposure to hydrazine on the F-16. Cuts and lacerations from sharp objects like missile fins and control surfaces. Being run over by vehicles or aircraft towing accidents. Entrapment in fuel tanks. The list goes on and on and if you get distracted for even a moment it can result in your death. Maybe a quick and painless one, or a long and lingering one. And I’ve seen or heard of them all. 

Hopefully, this little glimpse behind the scenes shows why we don’t need to live in foxholes, carry an M4, and wear a helmet and IBA. It’s just a different job and if you don’t consider it worthy of being called the military, that’s totally fine. I’m thankful to everyone who carries that M4 into the fray and lives in a foxhole. I truly am. And all of us would do our very best, to personal exhaustion, to make sure that all of you had whatever support you need. Whether it’s an A-10 gun run, getting rid of bad guys overhead, or dropping in more food and ammo from a C-130. Now if our USAF Generals chicken out and won’t let us do that, well rest assured that we are livid about those Show Ponies not letting us do what we do best. 

To all my fellow maintainers – please don’t be too critical of the details. I was just trying to keep it simple and general. If I had put all our technobabble and jargon in, it would have shut all the other non-maintainer readers down. 

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Dave Chamberlin served 38 years in the USAF and Air National Guard as an aircraft crew chief, where he retired as a CMSgt. He has held a wide variety of technical, instructor, consultant, and leadership positions in his more than 40 years of civilian and military aviation experience. Dave holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA, as well as a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Science. He currently runs his own consulting and training company and has written for numerous trade publications.

His true passion is exploring and writing about issues facing the military, and in particular, aircraft maintenance personnel.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.