AAC employee gets big check for saving AF millions

  • Published
  • By Kevin Gaddie
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  An Air Armament Center employee was awarded $10,000 through the Innovation Development through Employee Awareness program for his cost-saving idea to salvage bombs with explosive fill irregularities.

James Black, munitions team lead for Insensitive Munitions, Bomb Live Unit- 121 and BLU-122 systems in the Interface and Integration Branch, said his idea came about while looking for a way to recover bomb casings, whose explosive fill did not properly cure (set without imperfections such as air bubbles).

"We experienced a 10 percent error rate in fill issues with the bombs," Mr. Black said. "The cast cure explosive fill is difficult to get out, and in the past, these cases would be set aside for demilitarization at some point in the future."

Cast cure explosive fill is an explosive mixed with a plastic binder. Once cured, the explosive fill becomes a solid and requires other means of removal, such as a precision water jet.

With no economic procedure in place to remove the explosive fills from rejected bomb casings, the unused bombs were shipped off and stored.

"At a $60,000 to $120,000 per case cost, it was extremely expensive to the war fighter, to have these cases simply set aside," said Mr. Black, who has been involved with munitions for over nine years.

Mr. Black's proposal was a washout procedure that could be used at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, located in Okla., or at a subsequent contractor facility.

Rather than storing the unused bombs, the explosive cast cure material is now washed out, and the waste is recovered and corrected. The bomb case is also recovered, repaired if necessary, and then reused, which will save the government more than $45 million over the next five years, according to Mr. Black.

This change will also affect the process for older, expired weapons.

" It's a combined use - we wash out and recover the bombs in production, and yet use the same facilities to wash out bombs that are coming back from the field that are no longer usable," he continued. "In the long run, it's a win-win not only for the Air Force, but also the Army and the demilitarization process. We can get the explosive fills out of the bomb cases and then we can salvage the bomb cases for scrap steel in the future and save more money."

As for his plans for the money, Black said he will go on a vacation with his wife.

The IDEA program offers a way for people to contribute their IDEAs on how to do things more efficiently and effectively. This program is a customer-oriented program that allows for submission, evaluation and cash or non-cash recognition for their approved IDEAs.

Ideas are submitted at https://ipds.randolph.af.mil. For more information, contact Marlene Suarez, Eglin IDEA manager, at 882-5168.