The F-16 mechanics at Ogden Air Logistics Center in Utah no longer have to spend endless hours scraping sealant off fighter wings. Now they have a machine that blasts off the sealant using dry ice pellets, and they say it’s already paid for itself. What used to take four shifts of three to four people to do by hand, now only takes one person over four shifts. The machine cost $27,000, and based on the man-hour savings, it “was almost paid for after the first use,” says Dennis Hathaway, F-16 Wing Shop supervisor.
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…