Edwards joint maintenance team completes significant JSF propulsion verification event

  • Published
  • By Jet Fabara
  • 412th Test Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  A propulsion verification event is often considered tedious but essential work accomplished by the unseen maintainers of the developmental test and evaluation world.

For every technical procedure regarding maintenance on an aircraft, there needs to be a verification process, and as of March 20, a significant milestone for the Joint Strike Fighter test team occurred here as a joint team of Air Force and U.S. Navy maintainers, DOD employees and Pratt and Whitney contractors, combined efforts to provide verified technical procedures to be used by the entire JSF fleet, both nationally and internationally.

"When new data modules, or technical procedures are authored, they must go through a verification process before they can be used by maintainers across each service," said Robert Miller, 412th Maintenance Logistics Squadron, F-35 Joint Technical Data site lead. "The verification is performed in a strict controlled environment to make sure procedures work correctly. During the course of this verification, we capture improvements which can be made and also identify any safety concerns which may be added."

According to Miller, what made this event so significant was that it was the first dedicated propulsion event at Edwards accomplished by the joint team.

"We're verifying the standard right now on how to assemble and disassemble a modular engine while accomplishing it safely," said U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Duron Lowe, Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine, aviation machinist's mate. "Basically, by verifying these maintenance steps and procedures and making sure they're correct, we ensure all the different services are going to be able to do their maintenance job the right way the first time and in a safe manner. This way there are no issues in the field."

During the week-long event, which began March 16, Miller noted the team was given the task of verifying six data modules, all dealing with maintenance specifically on the F135 exhaust in one manner or another.

"The most significant is the removal of the exhaust as a complete assembly with the nozzle. This will reduce the time when removing components for a power module change significantly and enhance the serviceability of the aircraft," Miller said.

While many team members noted that these verification activities usually occur elsewhere and are performed by developers and contractors, the military maintenance team said this event allowed them to interact with Pratt and Whitney propulsion field service representatives on a face-to-face basis, share inputs and make changes accordingly.

"In the operational field, it may take maintainers months for a process to change, but in this event we had the opportunity to sit down side-by-side with the technical procedure authors, so if we had an idea we could recommend a change and they could do it right there and then," added Senior Airman Joseph Morgridge, 412th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief. "I've worked on other airframes before and while performing a task, you sometimes wonder why you're doing a task that's not as efficient, so by being a part of this, we get to help create more efficiencies in the technical process for F-35 maintainers across the board."