A pair of maintainers with the 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron took a trip to Mosul, Iraq, to rescue a stranded C-130 cargo airplane. SSgt. David Harrelson and SrA. Brian Kundick, both deployed to Iraq from Pope AFB, N.C., conferred with the C-130 flight engineer SSgt. Robert Alexander, who reported leaking hydraulic fluid. Harrelson crawled into the tail to find a failed elevator booster pack—the device that enables the aircraft to elevate and descend—while Kundick went to work on uncooperative access panel bolts outside the aircraft. It was late night and Kundick could see where security forces were spotlighting for snipers only a few hundred yards away. All in a day’s work—Harrelson noted, “It’s not unusual to find parts that age aboard a 42-year-old aircraft.” They finished the job the next day.
The Collaborative Combat Aircraft will be operational in the late 2020s, several years before the Next-Generation Air Dominance family of systems, Air Force officials told the House Armed Services tactical aviation panel. The CCAs will first be “shooters,” then electronic warfare platforms, then sensors, in that order, they added.