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 Hercules gets a bath By Tech. Sgt. Phyllis Keith
                West Virginia National Guard
 CHARLESTON, W.Va., - The C-130 Hercules is often described as the workhorse of the airlift fleet. Its military uses include gunship, tanker, bomber, drone mothership, psychological warfare, special operations, electronic intelligence, command and control and humanitarian support to disaster areas. Occasionally, it needs a bath. "Every 180 days," said Tech. Sgt. Adam Mace, an aircraft mechanic with the 130th Maintenance Squadron at Yeager Airport. "We do this right before every ISO inspection." An ISO, or isochronal inspection, is a phase of aircraft maintenance based on calendar days. "Right before every ISO inspection, it [plane] comes in and gets washed, and then halfway through this phase, before the next ISO, it gets washed again. So it gets two washes a year," Mace said. Washing a C-130 transport aircraft is almost the same as washing a car, except the maintenance crew uses a heavy industrial soap that is mildly corrosive. "There's soot from the running of the engines. On the flap wells you'll have greases, oils, and hydraulic fluids. And around the engines you might have some JP-8 fuel," said Master Sgt. Kraig Thomas, the inspection element supervisor for the 130th Maintenance Squadron. Maintenance crews use a low pressure spray gun that foams the soap so it clings to the surface of the aircraft and has a longer hang time. Then the scrubbing begins. "We start at the bottom and wash our way to the top," Mace said. "We get the landing gear, then we get the wing and the tail, and then we get on top of the wings." Ideally, it takes about 10 maintenance troops to wash an aircraft. However, on this wintery day in early January, Mace has a crew of four. It will take them about nine hours, washing the right side of the aircraft in the morning and the left side after lunch. This particular C-130 being washed belongs to the 125th Fighter Wing of the Florida Air National Guard.
Mace said the aircraft was once used to track hurricanes. "This plane ... flies over salt water," he said. "Salt water's real corrosive, so it's important that we get it cleaned." Washing an aircraft is just like washing your personal vehicle, Mace said. Once the water is shut off, the maintenance crews get to step back and take a look at the freshly scrubbed airplane.
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