At Hill Airforce base in Utah, airmen are assessing advanced technology that could enhance the cost-effectiveness of maintaining America’s most advanced fighter aircraft.

The USAF’s 388th Maintenance Group’s Air Force Repair and Enhancement Program (AFREP) shop recently acquired a 3-D printer with the hope of increasing the availability of certain F-35 replacement parts — and driving down their cost.

Colonel Michael Miles, 388th Maintenance Group commander, said: “In the ‘sortie-generation cycle’, we’re always driving for speed, safety and quality to give our operators what they need in terms of aircraft availability
and readiness, but cost-effectiveness is also a priority. This new tech has great potential to minimise cost and provides rapid-repair capabilities.”

Tech Sgt Scott Mathews, assistant AFREP manager, said: “We receive parts that have been damaged, and we fix them so that they can be returned to the supply chain more quickly. It is much more cost-effective for the Air Force than buying new parts.”

‘Maintainers’ are excited about 3-D printing because it could potentially save thousands of dollars for simple plastic parts like wiring harnesses, grommets, fasteners, housing boxes and cable splitters.

Mr Mathews said: “Initially, it takes a ‘time investment’ to create a design template, but once that’s done, the printing goes pretty fast.

We’ll have the ability to make a grommet for a wiring harness instead of spending thousands of dollars and waiting on a completely new harness.”

It may be some time before the team can actually provide printed parts to the maintenance shops’ supply chain, as every new parts process needs to be tested, proven and approved to ensure quality and safety before being used on an aircraft.