Ya gotta a da ingenuity!
First class fixes!
________________________________________
From: Mercedes <mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com> on behalf of WILTON via Mercedes
<mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: 23 October 2015 18:20
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Cc: WILTON
Subject: [MBZ] OT - GEORGE TALES-SUPPLY
Yep, another one already.
GEORGE - SUPPLY
By Wilton Strickland, LtCol, USAF (Ret)
Not long after I arrived at George, our paint shop foreman asked me to
go to the base Laundromat with him to study a problem with the painted floor
and offer suggestions for a solution. He had been frustrated for years by
not being able to get the paint to adhere properly. "In spite of all we've
tried, it bubbles up and just peels off," he said.
At the laundry, I immediately noticed that the floor was nearly covered
with little "pimple-looking" bubbles. I reached down and popped several of
the bubbles and found them filled with water. I stood and said to the
painter, "Water vapor is rising through the concrete and condensing under
the paint causing it to bubble and peel. The concrete obviously does not
have a vapor barrier beneath it and would work better not painted at all,
though it may not look so good. This would allow the water vapor to
evaporate and never be noticed. Let me think about it overnight. I'll talk
to you about again tomorrow."
Late that afternoon, I went to the local Sears store for something,
and, as I approached the hardware department, I noticed indoor/outdoor
carpet on the floor. I suddenly had the solution to the laundry floor
problem! The next day, I told the painter, "Remove the paint from the floor
and install indoor/outdoor carpet with a short pile. Don't glue it to the
floor. Make sure it's porous, of course, the water vapor must be allowed to
rise through the carpet and evaporate." We never had another problem with
the Laundromat floor.
Most of my Air Force time before George was in B-47 aircraft
maintenance (crew chief) and B-52 flight operations, both of which had a
significantly higher supply priority than civil engineering maintenance
parts. Early in my tour at George, I became very frustrated by the
sluggishness and inefficiency of the overall Air Force supply system. This
was best illustrated when a housewife on base called me and vented her
frustration at not having a working kitchen faucet for well over six months.
I asked our mechanical section superintendent to investigate the situation.
A couple of hours later, he showed me several pieces of paperwork indicating
that a part costing less than two dollars had been on order for the
offending faucet for several months. He assured me that the plumbers were
doing all they could to repair the faucet; it was up to the supply system to
provide the part.
I told him, "A stack of papers a mile high will not make water run in
that lady's sink. Please take this five-dollar bill and stop by a hardware
store on your way home tonight, get the appropriate part and see that the
faucet is fixed tomorrow."
Late the next morning, he reported that the faucet had been repaired
and handed me approximately $3 in change from my five-dollar bill. (By the
way, if the faucet had been in my home, even on base, I would have taken
some personal initiative to find the part and get the faucet fixed myself
instead of waiting for "Uncle" to provide everything. Of course "Uncle" had
promised to do it, so, indeed, it was our responsibility to do so.)
A few months later, our electrical section superintendent came into the
office and told me that he had been at the Wing Commander's house trying to
repair a dimmer switch for a dining room chandelier. The commander's wife
was quite upset that she would be unable to have the chandelier working
properly for a dinner party she was having that evening. The superintendent
told her that he could replace the switch immediately with a simple on/off
switch, but it would probably take six months or more to get the proper
dimmer. I told him to follow me home, just around the corner about 3 houses
from the commander's home. There, I gave him an appropriate dimmer that my
brother, an electrical wholesaler in NC, had given me a couple of years
before. When the ordered dimmer arrived by way of the regular supply system
several months later, the superintendent came in and laid it on my desk to
replace the one I had provided.
I could not understand why we could not have a system to allow us to
buy hardware and materials from local hardware stores and building supply
centers. These vendors would be glad to get the business and would keep a
supply of parts and materials readily available or be able to get it much
faster than the regular Air Force supply system was doing. I learned later
that, by coincidence, such a system was already being planned. The system,
called COCESS (Contractor Operated Civil Engineering Supply Store), required
a contractor to keep a certain number of parts and materials at a facility
on base and readily available for use by civil engineering on short notice.
The contractor could also purchase parts and materials from local vendors on
short notice. We had this system in operation at George several months
later. It greatly improved our unit's efficiency, and relieved a lot of my
frustrations about the supply system.
COCESS did not completely eliminate my frustrations with Supply,
however. When we arrived at George, the all-night service call technicians
were using a small aluminum cot that was broken and ragged. I soon told the
sergeant in charge of this area to order a new proper, hotel-type, folding
bed to replace it. When the new bed came, though, it was another
lightweight aluminum cot that soon broke in the same manner as the old one.
When I asked the sergeant about the bed, he told me that he had tried to
order the heavier duty bed, but Supply sent the same lightweight cot, as
usual.
A couple of months later, I went to the local Sears store and saw the
proper heavy-duty hotel-type folding bed that I had in mind. With proper
model and catalog numbers in hand, I went to Supply and asked how I could
get the heavy-duty bed that I saw at Sears. The lady there told me that the
only way I could get it was by writing a "sole-source letter." I wrote the
required letter, and ordered the bed immediately. We received it several
days later.
Another hassle with Supply concerned a new typewriter for my secretary.
In most other offices I visited on base, secretaries had new or fairly new
IBM Correcting Selectric II typewriters. My secretary was using a very old
unit that often skipped letters or easily jammed. She had to type many
reports, including Airman Proficiency Reports (APR), which had to be
error-free. When I went to supply to order a new typewriter, the clerk
there told me that I would have to take an Olympic unit. When I reminded
him that most other offices on base had the latest IBM units, and asked why
I had to take an Olympic, he told me that it was because it was "their turn
for an order." I told him very succinctly that I would accept nothing less
than an IBM Correcting Selectric II. He then told me that the only way I
could get such a unit was, again, to write a "sole-source letter." I wrote
the letter that night, ordered the typewriter the next day, and received the
typewriter in a few days. By the way, I got pretty good at writing
"sole-source letters" and equipment "justification letters."
Late Saturday afternoon of July 4th weekend, 1977, I was in the living
room of our cabin in Wrightwood, a small village in the mountains 35 miles
southwest of the base. My "handi-talkie" radio was on the mantle. I just by
chance picked it up at the right time, turned it on and overheard one of our
plumbers telling the service call controller that he would not be able to
fix a water leak in the large 100-man dormitory on base. The building would
have no water until the leak could be fixed on Tuesday morning. I quickly
got on the radio and asked the controller about the problem.
(BTW, one may wonder how I was able to communicate with my service call
controller via handi-talkie radio across the 35 miles between us. The
controller was at the base on the Mojave Desert at an elevation of 3000
feet; I was on the side of a mountain above the desert at an elevation of
6200 feet, basically, overlooking the desert and the base and significantly
closer by line-of-sight than 35 miles.)
The controller told me that the plumbers had been trying to fix a leak
in a major supply pipe in the building for several hours and could not find
the needed parts. A one-inch PVC pipe was cracked and leaking profusely.
With two couplings and a short section of pipe, it should have been very
simple and easy to fix the break in a few minutes.
I told the controller that, with daytime temperatures of 100 degrees
and more, we were not going to let that building go without water for
another two and a half days until Tuesday morning. We were going to find a
way to get the water back on Saturday night. I took my radio and headed
toward the base, talking to the controller several times en route. I told
the controller that I would be there in about 35 minutes. I also told him
to try to find a hardware store open in town; I would swing by there and buy
the appropriate parts myself. He called back a few minutes later and told
me that he could not find a hardware store open. I told him to call the
COCESS representative and ask him to meet me at the COCESS warehouse. I
also told him to tell the plumbers to meet me at the warehouse with a short
section of the ruptured pipe. I was determined to find the necessary parts
to fix the leak, at least temporarily.
At the warehouse, after determining that the desired parts were not
available, I walked through the plumbing parts bins searching for pieces
that I could use to temporarily repair the ruptured pipe. I finally settled
on a short section of three-quarter inch PVC pipe. Back at the dormitory, I
used a piece of sandpaper to sand the ends of the short section of pipe so
that they fit snugly inside the one-inch pipe. I applied glue to the
appropriate parts and shoved them together while the two 18-year-old
plumbers stood and watched in awe and astonishment. As I got down off the
ladder, I told the plumbers, "Turn the water on." A permanent and proper
fix was made the following week.
Wilton
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