By Gary Rice

They say there’s a first time for everything, and for Rick Harris and his crew in the Naval Air Depot (NADEP) Cherry Point H-53 Sheet Metal Shop, swapping sections of helicopter fuselages was one of those things. But the artisans brought their many skills to bear, responded to the task with determination and enthusiasm, and got the job done.

“This is something that’s never been done before on the depot’s H-53 line,” Sheet Metal Mechanic Supervisor Harris, said. “It presented us with an interesting and demanding challenge.”

“Helo number 928 has a cracked stub wing fitting,” Sheet Metal Worker John Ericksen said, “and since the fitting is beyond reasonable repair, a two-section unit of the aft fuselage was taken off of an old donor helo and grafted onto 928.”

Ericksen explained that the aluminum fuselage sections of the H-53 are made to be interchangeable, and most of the critical holes are drilled in the same place. The crew first removed two sections from the fuselage of 928, then separated the same two-section unit from the donor bird. The section from 928 with the damaged wing fitting will be discarded, and the other section will be used on a damaged aircraft from Afghanistan. Then, the two sections from the donor bird were attached to 928.

“We’re actually making two fully operational helos out of three damaged ones,” Ericksen said. “It’s kind of like juggling pieces of a puzzle around and making them fit together, and there were a lot of things that had to be done before we could make the swap. First, the airframers took out all the hydraulic lines, all the plumbing. Next, the electricians pulled all the wires back beyond the production break, the frame of the fuselage where the sections were separated. Then, the metalsmiths went in, took out all of the rivets and lock bolts, broke all the sealing around the skin, and pried the sections apart with a 4x4.”

Once the two-section unit of the donor bird was completely stripped and gutted, it was hoisted by crane onto a flatbed covered with mattresses and moved to 928. It was then attached to 928 and will later be re-plumbed and re-wired. There are also modifications that have to be transferred and quite a bit of basic sheet metal repair to be done.

Ericksen has been working at the depot for three years. He worked for a year and a half on the H-46 line before moving over to H-53s. Prior to the depot, he owned his own business for a while and also served 11 years in the military – including six years in the Navy and five in the Marine Corps – where he worked on both helos and jets.

“This is the first time I’ve done a swap of parts like this,” Ericksen said. “It’s all the same type of work we normally do here, but this is the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing done on the H-53 line.”

Helo 928 is an Air Force Pavelow that has seen plenty of service over many years. Once it is restored with its grafted fuselage sections, it will once again return to full service.

“I’m glad I got the opportunity to work on this job,” Ericksen said. “It helped me get more good experience working on 53s, and it was interesting work.”

“These guys did an outstanding job swapping those aircraft sections,” Harris said. “And now that we’ve proven we can do it, I expect to see many more jobs like this in the future.”

NADEP Cherry Point provides maintenance, engineering, and logistics support on a wide variety of aircraft, engines, and components for all branches of the U.S. armed forces. The depot’s mission is to support the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in providing the American warfighter with absolute combat power through mastery of six broad categories of naval aviation technologies: sensors, aircraft, weapons, training, launch and recovery, and communications. Employing almost 4,000 people, the depot is the only source of repair within the continental United States for many jet and rotary wing engines. It is the Navy’s center of excellence for rotary wing aircraft, providing engineering and logistics support for all Navy helicopters.

Photo: In the NADEP Cherry Point H-53 Hangar July 29, artisans who worked on the fuselage swap pose on the two-section unit they detached from the donor helo prior to moving it to Helo 928. From left are Sheet Metal Worker Tony Walker, Sheet Metal Mechanic Junior Smith, Sheet Metal Worker John Ericksen, Airframe Worker John Wheeler, and Sheet Metal Worker Andrew Burkhart. (Photo by Gary Rice)