Senior Airman Joseph Jennings shows how industrial tape is used to protect the C-130 Hercules’ forward landing gear struts.
“We want to prevent as much damage as possible to the main landing gear by applying the tape.”— Air Force Senior Master Sgt. William Harris, explaining why the maintenance shop at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., is applying a polyurethane tape to its C-130s’ landing-gear struts, and bellies. Frequent operations off rudimentary runways in places like Afghanistan are kicking up rocks and other debris that has cut the four-year lifespan of C-130 struts in half, the service notes, here. The goal is to see if the $100 piece of tape can extend the $100,000 strut's life. Next C-130 improvement: baling wire.
