Fixin' to get a black letter initial

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Clark Staehle
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Most people who own older cars can tell you sometimes it can seem like something always needs to be replaced to keep it on the road - new light bulbs, brakes or tires ... but what if that car was 50 years and was actually a KC-135?

Keeping each KC-135 airworthy is a big responsibility shouldered by the professional maintainers at the 100th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. And Nov. 2, those maintainers launched an aircraft with no work orders.

Tail number 60-0331 left the ramp as a black letter initial, meaning nothing was wrong with the plane. No work orders were due and nothing needed to be fixed or replaced.

"Little stuff, like a screw missing here, or a rivet pulling through, you don't ground a jet for that, but it's hard to get it fixed when it's flying in two hours, so you just try to get it fixed over time," said Staff Sgt. Brandon Becker, 100th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.

When most planes fly, they fly with minor problems. While the plane is flying, one thing might break. After it lands, the crew chiefs could find something else has broken. While the plane is on the ground, maintainers are able to fix one thing before the plane is slated for its next flight.

After it lands, the crew chiefs find two more problems and the paperwork adds up. Now the plane's crew chiefs must work even harder to wade through twice as many write ups. Once the problems are corrected, the crew chiefs cross it off their list. If they are able to whittle the to-do list down to nothing, the plane flies with a black letter initial.

Achieving such a goal is a big deal. It speaks highly of the team and their jet.

"It makes me feel pretty good," said Staff Sgt. Brandon Becker, 100th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. "The jet's 50 years old, and this is the only base I've been to where I've heard about black letters actually flying. I've been in six years, and I've only seen one before this one."

While such a success speaks well for the entire crew, the crew chief refuses to rest on his laurels.

"I'm going to use it for bragging rights for about a week - that's about all I can get away with," the sergeant said.

(Editor's note: Staff Sgt. Thomas Flynn and Senior Airman Justin Daly, both of 100th AMXS, are also crew chiefs with this aircraft and helped get the black letter initial.)