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Navy maintainer creates his own solution to a common problem

  • Published
  • By Howdy Stout
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Kevin Hart is the "go-to" guy for maintenance issues on the Navy's E-6B aircraft. Solving problems is what he does.

That's because he is the government's only field service representative for the E-6B Mercury aircraft of reconnaissance squadrons VQ-3 and VQ-4 stationed at Tinker. Along with the representatives of the original equipment manufacturer, he's an integral part of the FSR team.

"Part of what I do for the fleet is if they have a problem they can't fix, when they're stumped, they come see us," he says. "They come to me when they have a headache." Or -- in this case -- a backache.

Mr. Hart recently invented the Deck Grating Removal Tool, which is designed to remove the 200-lb steel gratings that cover the water runoff trenches in the Navy's four aircraft hangars. Removing the gratings to clean the trenches used to be back-breaking work. Literally.

"They would grab as many bodies and they could and lift," Mr. Hart explains. "They used to stick their fingers in the grating and pull it up."

But at 200 pounds the grating could and did injure Sailor's fingers and backs. Having suffered a back injury himself, he knew the dangers caused by lifting the grate.

"I've been walking across this deck watching these guys," he said. "And I'd been kicking this idea around for a while and eventually, I said, 'I'm going to do something.'"

That something is a single, square-shaped tool designed to fit into the grating without slipping through or toppling. Sized so that users are standing with knees slightly bent, all that is needed to lift the heavy metal grate is a little leg work.

"I can't believe nobody had thought of this before," Mr. Hart said. "It doesn't fall through and it doesn't fall over. All you have to do is stand up."

Mr. Hart ran his idea by the two squadrons' maintenance officers for a "sanity check" before taking the basic design to an experienced welder at the Air Logistics Center. There, welder Jack Wolfe refined the design and readied it for manufacture.

Some of the material for the tools came from VQ-3. "The rest of the material I got from around the base," Mr. Hart said.

Mr. Wolfe made eight tools in total, two for each of the Navy's four hangars. At home, Mr. Hart primed and painted the tools red before hanging them on the hangar walls under simple signs reading "Deck Grating Removal Tool."

A Navy tradition is the daily stand-up maintenance meeting of each shift to plan the work for the day. At these meetings, Mr. Hart told the Sailors the tools were now available.

"That's all I did," he said. "And the word got out."

Mr. Hart didn't even explain how to use the new tools. No verbal explanations. No lengthy written instructions. Not even stick figures showing how to use it. The lack of instructions, though, validated the simplicity of the tool's design.

The way it is designed, Mr. Hart says, is that two tools must be used together to remove the grating and each tool must have four people. It is, he said, self explanatory.

"I purposely did nothing," Mr. Hart said. "It only fits one way. It works. You don't have to think about it."

The tools, now a bit battered with a few chips of paint missing, are in constant use, sure proof of their success. "They were an instant success and I can't count the number of times I've been told that these tools are the greatest thing since sliced bread," Mr. Hart said. It is ironic, he added, because "nobody knew they needed it until it was there."

Now that they exist, Mr. Hart believes his simple solution might have wider applications. "I think we can use this everywhere," he said. "We're not the only ones with deck grates."