The U.S. Marine Corps has begun a three-year effort to repair all of its 147 aging CH-53E Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) said Aug. 10.
During the “reset,” each airframe will be taken apart and rebuilt, and worn-out components will be replaced, NAVAIR said. The process is expected to take 110 days on average but ultimately increase the aircraft’s readiness rates, NAVAIR said.
The reset validation aircraft was completed in April at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C. The next five CH-53Es have begun the process, with three at New River and two at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. Eventually, the Marines plan to reset a total of 16 aircraft at a time, with seven at both New River and Miramar and two at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
Most Super Stallions have already received new fuel lines and redone wire bundles as a result of a January 2014 crash of an MH-53E Sea Dragon, the Navy variant, which killed three of five sailors aboard. Crash investigators determined that electrical wires had chafed against and breached a fuel line, sparking a fire that filled the aircraft with thick smoke. The fuel line and wire fixes have boosted the number of “ready” CH-53Es to about 30 percent, up from 20 percent, NAVAIR said.
The Marines have been flying CH-53Es since the early 1980s and plan to keep them in service until 2027. Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin [LMT] company, is developing a replacement helicopter, the CH-53K.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., Aug. 9, Gen. Robert Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, called the CH-53E the service’s “second-most challenged airframe,” after the F/A-18 Hornet.
Neller said the state of Marine rotorcraft declined because the service did too much maintenance on the aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of returning them to the United States, where more extensive work could be performed. “I think we made a mistake,” Neller said. “I would recommend to my successors to never do that again.”