Iwakuni Marines use 3D printers to revolutionize maintenance for fighter jets
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">Using 3D printers, Marines based southern Japan created two products that reduce the time it takes to repair F/A-18 Hornets and may save the Defense Department money.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">Called an engine ship kit, the first innovation is a set of plastic clips and plugs to prevent oil and hydraulic fluid leaking from aircraft engines removed for repairs. The other is a tool that helps maintainers grease the bearings on the F/A-18¡¯s high-speed Gatling gun.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">Designed by Marines from MCAS Iwakuni¡¯s Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 12, the engine ship kit will have an immediate impact on operations, squadron commander Lt. Col. Javier Garcia recently told Stars and Stripes.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The kit eliminates the need for maintainers to travel to austere locations to drain oil and hydraulic fluids so an engine can be taken safely back to Iwakuni for repair.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The plastic drain plugs prevent the fluid from leaking and the clips ensure the plugs are not dislodged as the engine is readied for transport.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The kit is the brain child of 1st Lt. Simon Miller and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mark Willems, who needed to get a broken F/A-18 engine from Wake Island to MCAS Iwakuni late last year.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The engine began to leak while a C-130 crew tried to load it, Garcia said. In the past, a team of maintenance Marines would have traveled to the location to prepare the engine for safe transport, but that takes away from their mission at MCAS Iwakuni.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">To solve the problem, Willems had the idea of creating plugs that would stop the leaks. Miller created the pieces using 3D drafting software and MALS 12¡¯s new 3D printers.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">¡°I¡¯m not really sure why no one thought to make this kind of kit before, but this design is going to have an impact across the Navy and Marine Corps,¡± Garcia said.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The same team behind the engine ship kit also created a tool that makes it easier for maintenance Marines to grease the bearing on the F-18¡¯s M61A Vulcan, a Gatling-style rotary cannon that can fire 6,000 rounds a minute.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The bearing on the cannon must be packed with grease every 30,000 rounds, a job that used to take two Marines more than 30 minutes, said Cpl. Christian Smellie, an aviation life-support systems technician who works at Iwakuni¡¯s 3D printing lab.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">Smellie worked with ordnance Marines to design a plastic ring that is used to smash thick grease into the tightly packed bearing, cutting the maintenance time down to less than 10 minutes.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The current design, or ¡°version 2.0,¡± is two pieces. A large ring holds the bearing in place and a smaller ring pushes the grease into the space between the ball bearings.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The pieces are printed to tight parameters to ensure that the compressed grease doesn¡¯t ooze out the sides. The tight fit can make version 2.0 hard to remove, and the team is already working on version 3.0, which will have a handle to make removing the compression ring from the bearing easier.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The two products are so new that Navy Air Systems Command¡¯s additive manufacturing team has not yet figured out how to track the possible savings, NAVAIR official Liz McMichael recently told Stars and Stripes in a phone interview. NAVAIR is a systems command that provides material support for aircraft and airborne weapon systems in Navy and Marine Corps.</span>
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<span style="font-size:12px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;">The bearing packer could have impact across the Defense Department once it is complete, because the M61A is used in Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18s, and Air Force F-16s, F-15s and F-22s.</span>
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29 Jan,2019
