HomeNewsArticle Display

Grounding an autopilot problem: 564th’s innovative idea leads to big savings

  • Published
  • By John Parker
  • Staff Writer
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE - Okla. --  A little more than a year ago, the 564th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron struggled with an aircraft autopilot system that was sending the squadron's repair and maintenance schedule way off course.

Because the autopilot avionics in KC-135 refueling aircraft could only be tested in the air, any problems discovered there would have to be fixed on the ground, then re-evaluated in a second flight.

In KC-135 maintenance, a second functional check flight adds up --
each costs an average of $43,000, said Colin Tatham, the KC-135 acting electric/avionics unit chief with the 564th.

But thanks to a dishwasher-sized "fly table" thought up by avionics work leader Kevin Becton, repeat check flights due to autopilot problems have been thoroughly grounded.
In fiscal 2014, the fly table, also called a fly plate, prevented seven repeat flights for autopilot problems by first finding and fixing the trouble on the ground, Mr. Tatham said.

The idea and the savings - about $301,000 this year - impressed Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command. She honored project lead Mr. Tatham with a coin during her visit to Tinker AFB last week.

"I knew I was meeting with her to talk about the fly table, but the coin was kind of a surprise," Mr. Tatham said. "It was definitely overwhelming. I'm proud of the guys who worked on it."
Mr. Becton said he originally conceived of the fly table in 1997. In a team effort with engineers, electricians, welders and others, the 564th manufactured its latest improved version of the fly table from a hunk of scrap metal, an off-the-shelf tripod and aircraft spare parts.

The equipment works by allowing mechanics to take it inside a Stratotanker, remove the plane's two identical autopilot units and one analog gyro and mount them side-by-side on top of the flat metal table. The GPS/autopilot components can be secured to the table quickly thanks to spare mounts pulled from an aircraft boneyard.

With the autopilot units on top, the table itself is mounted on a heavy-duty camera tripod that can be easily moved by hand up, down, sideways, back and forth up to 60 degrees of motion. With all three autopilot components moving in unison, the fly table becomes a virtual flight simulator when its electrical wiring system is hooked into a plane's powered-up flight controls on the ground.

"As we're tilting and rolling this, we can actually see in the flight deck the instruments responding," Mr. Tatham said. "We can also have a person outside the aircraft watch and when we engage the autopilot, they'll see the flight controls moving.

"We now actually perform tests with this table prior to every flight attempt," he said, "so we can find the problems before they ever take it up."

Solving the autopilot quirks with a simple solution has helped build the 564th's relationship with the 10th Flight Test Squadron, Mr. Tatham said.

"For the aircrews taking these up, they don't know the condition of the aircraft and being able to give them a better product the first time around really helps to build their confidence in the maintainers here," he said.

"It was just a very simple idea that's turned into a huge success for us," Mr. Tatham added. "I just helped them take the idea and make it to where we are today. It was really a very huge team effort because it was so important to us. We were spending so many dollars and with the numbers of flights last year that if we could find a way around that, this would be huge."
Mr. Becton echoed Mr. Tatham's observation on building aircrews' confidence in the 564th's work.

"Our people here really try to push out a better product for our aircrews and the warfighter out there in the field."