Spirit Award

  • Published
  • By Heidi Hunt
  • 509th Bomb Wing
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  Brig. Gen. Robert Wheeler, 509th Bomb Wing commander, presented the Spirit Award May 19 to Airmen and civilians from a combined working group which consisted of the 509th BW, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, the Air Force Global Logistics Support Center, and Northrop Grumman.

General Wheeler nominated the individuals for making revolutionary changes to sustaining B-2 tailpipes.

"The B-2 tailpipe working group displayed tenacity, dedication and innovative thinking to solving what appeared to be a significant problem with spare tailpipe availability for the B-2," General Wheeler said.

The combination of the working group's efforts will save $2.3 million dollars per tailpipe over the lifetime of the component, while enhancing stealth coating repair reliability.

The team's efforts will significantly reduce both man-hours and money required to repair the B-2's tailpipes--critical to maintaining the aircraft's stealth characteristics.

The Tailpipe Working Group, formed and led by Mr. Steve Worley, 556th Aircraft Sustainment Squadrons program manager, dramatically improved sustainment activities ranging from inspection and repair procedures, tracking of tailpipe repairs, trend/predictive failure analysis to more effective preventive maintenance procedures extending the serviceability and design life of the tailpipe.

The capability to sustain the B-2 tailpipes ultimately enhances the ability of the B-2 pilots to fly missions in high threat combat operations--critical for the 509th BW to meet unified combatant command taskings worldwide.

Additionally, the team rewrote contract line items to optimize effectiveness of depot level repairs dropping the time to turn tailpipes at the contractor facility from nine to three months.
The team also established a limited repair capability at Whiteman AFB to allow the 509th Maintenance Group to do low-level repairs to place bonding agent between the tailpipe and ceramic stealth coatings reducing turn time from months to less than two weeks for bond arc only repairs.

Members of the B-2 tailpipe working include:
Capt. Timothy L Pitzer
1st Lt. Tal Hudson
1st Lt. Andrew J. Zanrucha
Senior Master Sgt. Daniel J. DeMers
Master Sgt. Zach Capogna
Master Sgt. Jeremy S. Shay
Master Sgt. James L. Brewer
Tech. Sgt. Steve Mersky
Tech. Sgt. Daniel Stair
Tech. Sgt. Michael White
Staff Sgt. Stephen Daniel
Staff Sgt. Scott Lloyd
Staff Sgt. Robert Mason
Senior Airman Joseph Lillis
Mr. Albert Bauer
Mr. Jerry Forste
Mr. James Gerdes
Mr. Steve Johnson
Mr. Dustin D. Kyger
Mr. Seth A Kelpine
Ms. Linda Kerr
Mr. Lebron (Tuney) Ropp
Mr. Charles Switalski
Mr. Eric Wagner
Mr. Stephen L. Worley