WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio (AFLCMC) – The method to create a digital twin of B-1 tail #85-0092 is already displaying promise to foretell and management sustainment processes in a method that may maintain this restricted useful resource within the air.
Lt. Col. Joseph Lay, B-1 Program Supervisor, defined on a current episode of AFLCMC’s Management Log podcast how his workplace at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma is partnering with Wichita State College’s Nationwide Institute of Aviation Analysis in Kansas to carry this retired bomber into the digital age.
“The easy reply is we would have liked to determine a strategy to do issues smarter, cheaper and higher – the holy trinity for acquisitions — that we’re making an attempt to attain,” Lay stated.
Among the many points, repairs have been taking too lengthy, authentic producers have been out of enterprise making components scarce and costly, upgrades and inspections have been retaining plane grounded.
“Being reactive means we anticipate one thing to occur, after which we strive to determine what to do,” Lay stated. “We do not wish to be in that place. We wish to be the place we perceive what is going on to occur, we have already got the restore on the shelf and we exit and put it on the plane forward of time, in order that we maintain that plane availability very excessive. Particularly with a smaller fleet, that is essential.”
As soon as the plane was pulled from the Boneyard (309th Aerospace Upkeep and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona) and trucked 1,000 miles to the WSU campus, employees started to dissemble and scan every half.
“The mechanics are literally going out and so they’re taking components off the plane. These components are then scanned utilizing a laser scanner that creates a 3D picture of that half,” Lay stated. “Concurrently, we have now engineers which can be taking the outdated 2D drawings and so they’re changing these into 3D drawings. Then we do a facet by facet comparability to search for variations and that is really one of many greatest advantages as a result of lots of these plane have been type of hand constructed.”
The small variance in components as a result of distinctive methods they have been constructed has at all times led to challenges getting components to suit. One other problem is discovering producers keen and able to utilizing outdated 2D drawings to provide single gadgets. The brand new digital data will assist resolve these points.
To listen to the total dialog, you may watch Management Go browsing YouTube at https://youtu.be/wOR-p2rqoRM. You can too hear by looking out “Management Log” on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Overcast, Radio Public or Breaker.
