The Air Force plans to drop some serious cash to upgrade the landing gear on some of its oldest aircraft.
The service has awarded a contract to AAR to overhaul the landing gear on its C-130 Hercules; KC-135 Stratotanker; and E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system, or AWACS, fleets, according to an announcement.
AAR, an Illinois-based aviation services company, recently landed a $909.4 million fixed-price contract from the service for landing gear performance-based logistics, the company said in a release.
AAR will provide "total supply chain management," including "purchasing, remanufacturing, distribution and inventory control to support all Air Force depot and field-level, foreign military sales, other services, and contractor requisitions received for all C-130, KC-135 and E-3 landing gear parts," the release states.
"We are excited to get started on this important contract for the Air Force," said Nicholas Gross, senior vice president of AAR's government supply chain solutions, in a statement. "Serving as the prime contractor, AAR will support these three fleets utilizing our Landing Gear Repair and Overhaul center in Miami [Florida], as well as our supply chain network across the country."
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AAR also has offices and warehouses in Wood Dale, Illinois, and Ogden, Utah.
The work comes at a time when landing gear malfunctions have become more common, especially in older aircraft such as the Hercules.
A maintenance team with the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, based in Southwest Asia, recently worked to fix a C-130's landing gear after a tire blew out on landing at a forward operating base -- days before this reporter took a flight in a sister C-130 over Iraq.
The team's combat metals airmen ended up creating and installing the damaged Hercules' landing gear door to salvage the wheels' cover.
The repair cost the Air Force "229 man-hours, $400 in material, and 264 rivets for an engineer-approved air battle damage repair procedure," the service said.
In total, it saved $107,000 in replacement cost for the Air Force, according to a release.
