Technicians at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla., reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and USAF to begin refurbishing F-22 air turbines and expect to garner work for more than 30 F-22 components, according to the Tinker Take Off. The Oklahoma depot has started work on 19 of the turbines that provide cooling air to the aircraft’s avionics and pilot and expects that number to grow in future years. The turbines represent new technology used not only on the F-22 but other military aircraft, and the Tinker technicians, experts on old-style turbines, had to learn new techniques from Honeywell. According to the newspaper, the new turbine “takes hot bleed air from an aircraft’s engines and, through a combination of compression and expansion, cools the air” for reuse. Unlike older systems, it has no metal or ceramic bearings, “it’s just air that it rotates on,” said Michelle Smith, pneumatic mechanic. (Tinker report by Howdy Stout)
The Space Force should take bold, decisive steps—and soon—to develop the capabilities and architecture needed to support more flexible, dynamic operations in orbit and counter Chinese aggression and technological progress, according to a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
