N.C. workers keep copters flying for Marines

Havelock heroes modernize aging aircraft, resurrect derelicts from 'boneyard'

With two wars chewing up the Marine Corps' fleet of big helicopters, about the only thing keeping it aloft is the ingenuity of the workers at a huge maintenance shop in Havelock.

The 4,000 workers at the Fleet Readiness Center East at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point are adding years to the lives of some helicopters and refurbishing others dragged out of an aviation "boneyard" in the desert. Many are so clever at devising ways to fix aircraft out of production for decades that their bosses refer to them as artisans.

Troops who face better odds flying over Iraq than braving roadside bombs have another word: heroes, according to John Milliman, a helicopter acquisition program spokesman at Patuxent River Marine Air Station in Maryland.

"What the folks there are doing for the Marine Corps is just phenomenal, and you can't overstate it," Milliman said.

Helicopters are vital in both wars. In Afghanistan, roads are all but nonexistent in the rugged countryside. In Iraq, meanwhile, the sky is safer than the roads.

Still, more than 100 U.S. helicopters have been shot down or lost in accidents in the two wars, a U.S. general said last week. A CH-47 Chinook went down in Afghanistan on Sunday, killing eight people, including an airman from Pope Air Force Base, and injuring 14, and a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight downed in Anbar Province on Feb. 7 was the sixth U.S. helicopter to crash in Iraq in less than three weeks.

Military officials in Iraq say that aircraft, like at least four others, had been shot down and admitted that insurgents had gotten better at knocking out U.S. choppers. Captured documents show that insurgents have decided to concentrate on attacking helicopters, according to a New York Times article Sunday.

The Fleet Readiness Center in Havelock -- long known as the Naval Air Depot -- is the only source for replacements for at least one model, the giant CH-53E Super Stallion.

Resuscitating Stallions

Workers there have already rebuilt two that spent more than a decade in a desert "boneyard" in Arizona. They are working on three more, and the next two are being readied for shipment to Havelock, said Lt. Col. A.P. Camele, director of operations at the center.

The Super Stallion is often described as the Corps' workhorse and is that service's only "heavy lift" helicopter. It moves large amounts of cargo and troops long distances and performs rescue missions.

Milliman said workers in Havelock came up with a cost-effective way to replace a crucial bulkhead that had limited the helicopter's life to 6,000 hours of operation. It can now fly about 10,000 hours. No new CH-53Es have been made since 1999.

Its replacement isn't expected to go into service until 2015. All 156 of the new model, the CH-53K, wouldn't be in service until 2020.

The heavy lifting in Afghanistan and Iraq would have meant that the Marines would be parking helicopters for good by 2010, five years before the replacements start coming into service.

The bulkhead fix and refurbishing eight junked helicopters should close the gap, Milliman said.

Also, he said, workers at the center devised several fixes to extend the life of an even older helicopter, the medium lift CH-46, which dates to the 1960s and is the oldest helicopter used by the U.S. military. The CH-46 and a less-powerful model of the H-53D are the Marines' medium-lift helicopters, mostly used to move people.

Terry Vanden-Heuvel, a spokeswomen for the boneyard -- actually called the the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center -- said she was told Thursday that the plan for the medium-lift fleet also would include sending the only two rebuildable CH-53D models to Havelock, too.

The first three helicopters from the Arizona boneyard were brought to Havelock in 2005. It was the first time that such a job had been tried, and the workers had to feel their way as they went. Still, two of those helicopters were handed over to the Marines early.

It was unclear then, though, that the Marines would want every one of them. Only in the past few days was the boneyard told that the last ones would be probably needed, said spokesman Rob Raine.

Refurbishing them isn't simple. This is the first time that retired choppers like these have been returned to service. It's not just that they've been outside for years, but also that the Super Stallion has evolved substantially.

After the helicopters are cleaned and stripped, more than 80 major changes have to be made, including engine and navigation equipment upgrades and the addition of systems to protect the choppers from enemy missiles.

"It's almost like trying to turn a 1989 Chevrolet Corvette into a 2005 Corvette," said Camele.

Without the talents of workers who have grown accustomed to making sophisticated parts from scratch for helicopters long out of production, it would be impossible, he said.

"Often they'll make recommendations to the engineers about how to tackle a problem," he said. "It happens all the time. Once or twice a month, someone comes to me and says 'You've just got to come and see what this guy has come up with.'"