Point of Contact: Nancy L. Crook, Public Affairs Division Director
(904) 542-3168, extension 161

Release No. 06-07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 7, 2006

Naval Air Depot, Jacksonville completes another first
By Frank Taormina, Public Affairs Specialist

Naval Air (NAVAIR) Depot Jacksonville continues to put the Warfighter first by completing a major F/A-18 wing spar repair while providing cost savings of $2.7 million. Depot personnel completed this unprecedented repair by using a spare F/A-18 wing that was available in the supply system. Wing Shop personnel, working in conjunction with several trades, including Engineering, Production Control, Quality Assurance, the CNC Machine Shop, and Manufacturing Planning, performed this valuable repair.
The F/A-18 left, inner wing had a cracked aft spar that prevented it from being used on the aircraft. The solution to this problem was, of course, to replace the spar. This could not be accomplished since there were no available spars. Depot management decided to make a new spar using reverse engineering. Buster Hathcock, wing shop supervisor, ran the hands-on portion of the repair and put his talented artisans to work. The first step was to remove the aft spar from the wing. Once that was accomplished, the tedious job of manufacturing a new spar began. Since there was no Local Engineering Specification to work from and prints were not readily available, extensive research was required. Ruth Orr, wing shop work leader, worked tirelessly scouring the tech library and researching technical publications and Boeing Aircraft prints. Once the publications and prints were located, the next stop for the wing was the CNC Machine Shop.
With the assistance of the Engineering Department, Machine Shop personnel manufactured a new spar. This was no small task since new material and new tooling was needed. Also, there were many obstacles to overcome such as funding delays, obtaining the required material, and material certifications. The Jacksonville Depot was able to acquire some tooling from NAVAIR Depot, North Island, California and NAVAIR Depot, Jacksonville’s Oceana Detachment in Virginia Beach, Virginia. What tooling couldn’t be acquired had to be developed and this too, was accomplished by the Machine Shop utilizing computer programming.
Wing shop personnel performed the critical job of installing the repaired wing on the aircraft while other maintenance work was being accomplished, such as wiring the wing and pressure testing the wing for fuel leaks.
Quality assurance was incorporated throughout the process. The successful completion of this undertaking was also a direct result of continuous process improvements implemented by the use of Lean/Six Sigma and 5S/Shipshape concepts.
Once the process was perfected on the left wing, a spar was built for the right wing as well and was completed in just four weeks. Installation was completed in half the time.
In June of this year, the left wing was shipped to NAVAIR Depot, Jacksonville’s Oceana Detachment and installed on an F/A-18 aircraft. Today that aircraft is flying and defending our nation in the Global War on Terrorism.