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Aircraft Maintenance Questions (Vietnam)


ModelMage

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I'm starting work on a Vietnam era scene with a 1/48 F-105D and I ran into two questions I'm struggling to find the answers to.

1) Part of the scene is a tire change. Looking at modern tire changes on small A/C I see maintenance using a bottle jack on the bottom of the landing gear to lift the plane. Was that the practice in '66 with these jets or was there more to it?

2) I know from a few pictures I've found so far that the jets had starter carts, what were their designation?

 

Thanks in advance for any help

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I can't speak for Vietnam era (or any era) military aircraft maintenance, but in the civilian world, yes, axle jacks can be used on some types--it is a lot easier to jack at the axle than at the jack points, since jacking the axle takes one jack (the jack points requires multiple jacks and personnel).

Aircraft with dual mains can also be "jacked" on a ramp--the wheel that isn't being worked sits on a ramp while the "bad" wheel is free to be removed.

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  • 2 months later...

Hey MM.  A basic Air Force turbine airstart cart is the A/M32A-60, which was used in Viet Nam and a variation is still in use today.  In the navy we call called them "huffers".  For flight deck use,  huffers were usually found attached to the back end of a standard MD-3 shipboard tow tractor.  We also had huffers similar to the Air Force units that were towed and not attached to a tractor.

I can't address F-105s, but, in the Navy, we used a variation of a bottle jack to change tires on F-14s and F-4s. 

I've attached a picture I pulled from the web of an A/M32A-60 start cart and an F-4 in Viet Nam.

Hope this gives you something to work with.

AM32A.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

The only time I jacked a fighter sized airplane was in tech school in 1966.  IIRC, we used some sort of bottle jack. It does have to be a able to fit under the jack lug found on the bottom of the strut. 

I spent my time on KC-135s and with the four tire truck, we would jack up whichever end of the truck needed it, using a rhino-jack.  It is very much a common floor jack, only much stronger and heavier.  They were pretty simple back in the day, but a Google image search shows all sorts of rhino jacks.

Not the definitive answer you are looking for, but I hope this helps.

 

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I jacked an F-105 for tire changes many times. The main gear door had a small door you opened to expose the axle. Then you plugged in an adapter which was in turn used to lift the axle. The tire was inside under the wing, but first you removed a retaining spanner then the axle nut. An old grease ring came off, then the wheel/tire as a single item. Reverse the process to mount the new tire.  To change a nose tire you put a collar around the oleo to keep it from extending, then jacked it on a spot on the bottom of the fuselage. The axle was unbolted allowing the tire/wheel set to taken off and the new assembly slid on, then replaced. Both main or  nose tire changes were no more than a 20 minute jobs AFTER you took a tow vehicle to supply and come back with the new tire 

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