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S-3 Viking rolls, sails, rolls to LMAS from the 'Boneyard' in Arizona (1999)
by Jeff Rhodes
Lockheed S-3A Viking, BuNo 160597, c/n 3117
An S-3B Viking completed an unusual journey to LMAS on Monday, May 6. It was the
final leg of a cross country trip that began in the Arizona desert on April 1.
The S-3B, which had been in long-term storage at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration
Center (AMARC) at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., (commonly known as the "Boneyard") was brought
to LMAS to perform full-scale fatigue testing on the airframe in order to validate a service
life extension program (SLEP) kit design.
"The ultimate objective of the program is to increase the remaining service life of the S-3
fleet," said Rob Weiss, S-3 program manager at LMAS and a former Viking pilot. "We believe
this program will allow the Navy to fly the S-3 beyond 2015."
As it was simply not cost-effective to pull the aircraft from storage, prepare it for a
one-time flight, and fly it to Marietta, the decision was made to transport the aircraft
through a combination of overland trucking and a barge.
After the aircraft was towed out of the storage area, the S-3's outer wings, vertical
and horizontal stabilizers, engine nacelles, and underwing stores pylons were removed and
shipped political to LMAS. Three wooden cradles were fabricated so the fuselage could be
carried on a flatbed trailer.
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In a bit of whimsy, technicians painted "GA or BUST" on the plastic covering over the S-3's
nose radome.
The Viking was then driven from Tucson, Ariz., to Houston where the entire fuselage/trailer
combination was loaded on a barge by crane. The trailer was then welded to the barge's deck.
The barge was pushed through the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers to
Chattanooga, Tenn., where the fuselage/trailer combination was unloaded.
The aircraft was then driven on a circuitous route through north Georgia to Marietta.
The size of the aircraft (nearly 30 feet wide without the wings) and trailer necessitated a
portion of a fence being temporarily taken down at LMAS to get the Viking on the premises.
The move was completed a week ahead of schedule.
The reassembled Viking will be installed in a specially constructed, ground-based test fixture.
The airframe will have loads applied via hydraulic jacks to simulate stresses associated with
expected operational use.
During the S-3's development, a full-scale fatigue test regime was completed to qualify the
aircraft's design life of 13,000 hours. The upcoming round of testing, with the SLEP kit
installed, is expected to take the S-3's useful life to 17,750 hours, which will extend the
Viking's service until well in the second decade of the next century. Testing will begin in mid
2001 and continue through 2002.
The SLEP kit itself involves relatively minor modifications, such as strengthening the metal
around holes, adding structural reinforcement, or replacing parts in approximately 16 locations
around the aircraft.
If the kit performs as expected in the fatigue testing, the Navy will then establish a modification
program for the approximately 115 S-3B aircraft still in service.
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http://lmasc.external.lmco.com/star/
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