Cuts

Matt Raven, left, and Roy Parkhurst aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Official Navy photo

The NAVAIR Depot North Island FST Avionics Team, from left, Hector Victa, Brett Gardner, Chris Lucero and John Tran. Tom Phan and Dannie Estep were not available for the photo. Photo by Brandt Wirstrom

NAVAIR Depot North Island F/A-18 Field Service Team goes to the fleet; assists squadron aboard Lincoln, then at NAS Lemoore

By Brett Gardner
NAVAIR Depot North Island

NORTH ISLAND - Eight months ago, an F/A-18C assigned to Fighter Attack Squadron 113 (VFA-113) at Naval Air Station, Lemoore began experiencing flashing display anomalies. Squadron officials asked for help from Naval Air Technical Data and Engineering Service Command (NATEC) at Lemoore and engineers started troubleshooting the problem. Over the next four months, engineers removed and replaced many components; however, the discrepancy remained.

Last April, Matt Raven, from NATEC Lemoore, contacted Naval Air Depot North Island’s F/A-18 Avionics Fleet Support Team (FST) to discuss displays, generators and power distribution. The squadron was preparing the F/A-18C for a deployment, and Raven said that NATEC was out of time and ideas as to how to repair the aircraft that was now at risk of being degraded for displays for the upcoming deployment. On April 12, the Depot’s F/A-18 Avionics FST received a planning and estimating request from VFA-113 for on-site help. Historically, there have been many flashing displays problems reported by the fleet, and most of them have been resolved with hardware fixes after an extended period of analysis and troubleshooting. The North Island Team anticipated that the flashing display problem would not be an exception.

Roy Parkhurst, Code 4.5.6, an FST.2 electrical engineering technician, was assigned to help. Parkhurst flew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) where he spent three weeks troubleshooting and repairing the aircraft.

Working said by side, Parkhurst and Raven isolated the flashing display to the power and propulsion aircraft wiring. The two suspected an intermittent wire was causing the left power buss to momentarily drop off line. The problem was further complicated because the fault could not be duplicated on the ground. Parkhurst and Raven performed the troubleshooting while working around and coordinating with the workup flight schedule, which wasn’t an easy task as time on the aircraft was limited.

To assist in the repair, a team of six Depot Hornet avionics engineers met daily and helped Parkhurst and Raven by e-mailing them additional aircraft detail and analysis and troubleshooting recommendations. With help from the Depot’s Field Service Team, several wire harnesses, avionics boxes, relay panels, and a chafed wire harness were repaired or replaced. After three weeks of troubleshooting aboard the Lincoln, the aircraft returned home to Lemoore and Parkhurst returned to the Depot.

Hector Victa, Code 4.4.4.3, an FST.2 electrical engineering technician, went to Lemoore. Victa and Raven, with the help of the FST.2 Avionics Team, continued to troubleshoot and replace suspected bad components and wires on the aircraft. After a week at Lemoore, Victa returned home to San Diego. Flight tests later revealed that the aircraft was still experiencing intermittent flashing displays. The Team, with Parkhurst and Victa joining in, devised ways to collect in-flight data using test flight jumpers to capture information that is not recorded during normal flight. With the information, the Team was able to fault isolate, with Raven’s suggestion, to a suspected airframe mounted assembly drive (AMAD) wire harness and AMAD ground power mode selection switch.

The harness and switch were changed and the aircraft flew 13 flights with no flashing noted.
The planning and estimating request was closed the second week of June, about three months after the initial request for assistance. After a lot of hard work, the aircraft would make its upcoming deployment without flashing displays.

Editor’s Note: Gardner is assigned to Code 4.5.4.