ONE JACK FOR MULTIPLE AIRFRAMES

By TSgt Ron Newpher, Air Expeditionary Force Battlelab

To support the Air Force’s vision of Global Engagement the Air Force must ensure the most efficient and effective use of its Aerospace Ground Equipment assets.  Consolidation of equipment and incorporating advanced technology solutions should become key focus areas in attaining the Air Force’s Expeditionary Combat Support goals.  The Air Expeditionary Force Battlelab (AEFB) proposed the Mobile Aircraft Jacks and Equipment Kit (MAJEK) concept to support those goals and demonstrated potential reductions in the AEF aircraft jack footprint from 400 pallet positions to 19 and preparation time from 1640 man-hours to 7.4.  These cargo space reductions could save the Air Force approximately 2.5 million dollars in airlift costs each 15 month period the MAJEK system is employed.  The MAJEK jacks are capable of jacking every heavy airframe in the USAF with the exception of the KC-10 and 747 Airborne Laser. 

The basic problem arises as heavy aircraft jacks are airframe specific and require deployment of sufficient numbers of each type of jack to support each aircraft type.  Deploying with each type of airframe-specific jacks and their specific maintenance support structure (spare parts and tools) increases deployment time and footprint.  Also, currently used heavy aircraft jacks are individually bulky, taking up much needed cargo space during shipment and require a significant amount of time for deployment preparation and employment reconfiguration. Finally, there is no deployable tripod jack tester in the Air Force inventory.  Periodic load testing is required while at deployed locations.  Deployed load testing is currently accomplished by using the weight of an aircraft to perform the test posing significant risk to personnel and extremely expensive aircraft.  Less bulky, universally applicable aircraft jacks with a built-in capability to perform required load testing while deployed would prove extremely beneficial to deployment forces.

The AEFB MAJEK initiative proposes a modified Commercial-Off-The-Shelf aircraft jack which can be used in place of most aircraft jacks currently used.  Standardization of aircraft jacks could better allow for pre-positioning of those assets in current AEF deployed locations.  This would eliminate the need for units to supply their own jacks during deployment, reducing deployment footprint and deployment preparation time.  Standardization of jacks could also reduce the support structure required to maintain jacks while deployed.  Finally, incorporating a deployable aircraft jack load tester into the jack technology, without increasing the deployment footprint, would allow for a safe jack testing procedure while deployed, decreasing the risk to personnel and aircraft.

Current deployment data, obtained from the AEF Center , was applied to the deployment and re-deployment of an entire AEF cycle (AEFs 1-10) over a 15-month period to determine how the MAJEK equipment might reduce deployment space and man-hours used in deployment preparation over the course of a complete AEF deployment cycle.  Using the current method of deploying two AEFs per rotation, five deployments and re-deployments were used to baseline the current operations for a complete AEF rotation cycle.  Using this scenario and taking advantage of the universality of the MAJEK equipment, a footprint savings of 95% or 381 pallet positions compared to the current 400 can be achieved. This also yielded a 99.5% or 1632.6 man-hour deployment preparation time reduction as compared to deploying with the currently used equipment.

To date, the MAJEK initiative has successfully been demonstrated on the B1-B, C-5, C-17 and KC-135 aircraft.  A final demonstration on the C-130 is scheduled for June 2004.  For further details, contact TSgt Ronald Newpher of the AEF Battlelab at 208-828-3522.

TSGT RONALD B. NEWPHER
Chief, Aerospace Ground Support Equipment Systems
Website: www.mountainhome.af.mil/aefb