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Maintainers meet for A-10 repair lesson

Wing crack worries continue to ground about 190 A-10 Thunderbolts.

To get the fighters back into the sky more quickly, a team of traveling trainers is teaching maintainers to repair the cracks at their home bases.

About 40 technicians from several A-10 bases gathered Nov. 12 at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., for hands-on instruction from a repair team from Ogden Air Logistics Center, Utah.

The Air Force had considered repairing most of the cracked wings at Ogden, the center for A-10 overhauls, but doing the work at bases where A-10s are assigned should save money and time.

“It would cost too much to fly all the aircraft to Hill [Air Force Base, Utah],” said Master Sgt. Steve Grimes, Air Combat Command headquarters A-10 maintenance liaison. “It would also take longer to repair all [of the planes] since three could only be sent at a time.”

The Ogden training team focused on trunnion removal and sheet metal repair, an Air Force release said. The trunnion is the attachment point of the main landing gear and wing. Stress to the trunnion causes the cracks.

“Each depot team member had an A-10 to repair so they could show how major repairs are done and allow airmen to apply what they learned,” said Master Sgt. Jeffrey Andrews of Moody’s 23rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron.

There is plenty of work for maintainers to do. Starting Oct. 3, the wing crack problems began grounding 191 A-10s, most with what the service calls “thin wings” — wings that were built with thinner metal than a later version of the air-to-ground fighter, according to Ogden officials. The other 165 A-10 are cleared to fly, but 100 will need later inspections.