By Jim Jenkins
Aging Aircraft Public Affairs

How many people does it take to make changes to a government manual?

One, but he has lots of help.

Ollie Muja, of NAVAIR’s Aging Aircraft Integrated Product Team, has spent the better part of his civil service career and the latter part of his 25-year Air Force career collaborating to create a joint service general wiring maintenance manual.

This wiring manual is known to maintenance personnel in the Navy and Marine Corps as the NA01-1A-505, or simply as the 505. The Air Force refers to its version of the manual as the 1-1A-14 and in the Army as the 1-1500-323-24. Before the joint effort, these manuals were produced separately by their respective services’ printing institutions and varied slightly from service to service. Muja’s task was to consolidate the manuals so that there was only one for all of the services maintenance professionals to reference.

“Essentially it provides the basis or foundation for all common wiring and interconnect system maintenance,” Muja said. “The 505 series affects every single generic task that gets done for both wiring and fiber optics.”

Muja is not just creating a one and done joint manual. There are four volumes in all. The first volume, the basic manual, was completed and issued to the services in September 2004 and concerns the “how to” of basic wiring maintenance. Volume one addresses how to cut, crimp, strip, inspect, solder … etc. wire. Volume two, scheduled to be released this September, addresses the maintenance of circular connectors; volume three, rectangular connectors, is scheduled for release next May; and volume four, which has already been released, fiber optics. Volume four is the first manual of its kind that addresses the maintenance of fiber optics in aircraft.

Most of these manuals, especially volume one, consists of more than a thousand pages of information. The update and joint consolidation simplified and updated 31 Navy volumes as Muja poured through thousands of pieces of information. The goal is to have each manual undergo a technology refresh every two years, keeping the maintainers’ wiring maintenance process current.

At the same time volume two will be hitting the streets, the first refresh, or big change, to volume one will also come out.

Muja is currently updating volume one by addressing problems found by the users, and adding additional material covering recent developments in aircraft wiring and maintenance.

For example:
• New self-leveling green sealant, approved for potting and sealing connectors
• Wrap-around heat shrink wire repair
• New wire diagnostic equipment (with two new meters)
• New wire diagnostic methods (the "how to")
• Updated wire characteristics information
• Updated connector protection & stowage instructions

The last time the Navy’s wiring maintenance manuals were updated was in 1988.

“The 505 was way overdue,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Steven Vogt, Wing Avionics Chief with the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. “The first volume has been a huge improvement. It’s a much easier resource to use now that they’ve changed how they put the publication together, instead of having so many volumes, and cutting down on the many different work packages.”

Vogt said that before the new manual came out, maintainers had become disillusioned with the 505 and rarely used it to perform maintenance. The advertising campaign announcing the arrival of the new and improved updated 505 was a great motivator for his maintainers. According to Vogt, once the first updated volume arrived, maintenance personnel were eager to use it.

The 505 and its sister manuals in the other services are arguably the most frequently referenced manuals during aircraft repair since they cover basic wiring maintenance issues. And even though each aircraft platform has their own unique wiring maintenance manual, they all refer back to the generic 505 so maintainers can address wiring issues not related to one specific platform.

To continue to provide the latest information and most up-to-date manuals, Muja is the filtering point for all services, and regularly receives suggestions from maintainers and engineers through various means.

Even though Muja is the main point of contact for the joint wiring maintenance manuals, he doesn’t work alone in providing the manuals to the maintainers of all three services, as well as the Coast Guard and Marine Corps. He works with his joint service counterparts to make sure the collaboration effort is as thorough as possible. Any new technology or tools added to the manuals have to first be verified through laboratory testing. And because the effort is a joint one, the services save money by sharing their findings, so that each service doesn’t have to repeat the verifications on their own.

“Having a maintenance manual that was technically useful to all the services was a huge undertaking by our engineers and technicians,” said Jerome Collins, Branch Manager for the Wiring Systems Branch.

The Wiring Systems Branch is responsible for the technical content of the manual.

“Documenting procedures and validating those procedures with the maintainers was critical to having a good finished product,” Collins said. “Our technical staff accomplished that task, and we’re starting to see the fruits of our labor in the feedback we’re receiving from the fleet.”

Once the manual is ready for publication, the Naval Air Technical Data and Engineering Services Command (NATEC) takes over.

That draft is routed to joint partners in the Army and Air Force for review. Their changes are assessed by Muja, and approved ones are then sent to the data manager to create the final work package. When all the work packages are completed, the front matter (title page, list of effective pages, index, etc.) are created and the manual is pieced together into a single document and converted to .pdf.

“There are many steps, checks and balances, and approvals that occur during the overall process,” said Ebbie Crockett, a logistical elements manager for NAVAIR at NATEC. “The output is an accurate, quality, technical manual that meets the needs of our war fighters and supports NAVAIR cost-wise readiness goals.”

The update to volume one of the 505 will hit the streets in September, making more than 400 improvements and technological updates in equipment and materials. This manual is a unique vehicle for technology transfer because it impacts all the uniformed services’ wiring maintenance processes.

Muja said the challenge is to safely balance the maintainer’s needs with the growing number of new technologies and materials on the horizon.

“The goal is to provide the maintainers what they need,” Muja said.