Maintainers retrieve ‘stab’ from Arizona Published July 29, 2011 By Wayne Crenshaw 78 ABW/PA ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Earlier this year, a Robins test-flight crew made the unusual move of flying a C-5 directly from a maintenance depot to the retirement yard in Arizona. The retired plane flown to Arizona had been here for programmed depot maintenance, but maintainers discovered it had a mainframe crack that would have been a major repair. Due to the age of the aircraft, the decision was made to retire it. Last week, depot maintainers here got part of that plane back. It had been planned all along to retrieve the horizontal stabilizer, more commonly called the "stab," from the retired aircraft. Maintainers here needed it to complete the important task of replacing stabs on six C-5s. The stab is the huge horizontal part of the C-5's tail. The stab alone is bigger than an F-15. A Robins depot field team flew to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., to retrieve the part. The base is the home of what is commonly called "The Boneyard," where all retired military aircraft are sent. Retrieving the stab is part of an important task to replace all C-5 stabs for safety reasons. Robins has been rebuilding the stabs during programmed depot maintenance. However, six aircraft have to be done separately because those aren't due for PDM in time to beat the December 2012 deadline to have all the stabs replaced. The planes will be grounded if the stabs are not replaced by the deadline. Those aircraft will start coming in later this year just to have the stab work done, said J.R. Robbins, C-5 stab shop supervisor. The part retrieved from Davis-Monthan is important to the operation because it will be rebuilt and ready to go when the first C-5 arrives. Then that plane's stab will be rebuilt and ready to go when the next one arrives. The action will allow the planes to be out of commission for only 10 days, said Dave Nakayama, director of the 559th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, which oversees all C-5 work.