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Sunday, September 7, 2025

Marx 50mm USAF Figures - Metallic Blue SP - Pt 12 (Final) Pose 11

Last, but not least, we have the Maintainer. The wrench turner without whom those fancy metal birds wouldn't get off the ground. These are the guys who do basic maintenance and repairs. Flying squadrons have a core group of maintainers assigned to them each with its own separate AFSC (each  particular job has an AFSC - Air Force Specialty Code - assigned to it and throughout this series we've already seen how other specialties come into play). There are AFSC's for hydraulics/pneudraulics, avionics, radar, egress, electronics, munitions, etc., etc., etc. 

My understanding of how things worked back when Marx released these figures, was that when something broke, a lot of troubleshooting and maintenance was done right in the hangars of the flying squadron. Later, as the planes became more and more complicated, the flying squadron personnel could only troubleshoot to see which little black box (actually a lot of them are gray) was acting up, then remove it and replace it. The box would then be sent to another squadron for repairs. If it still couldn't be repaired it was sent to the depot for maintenance. But there were other things that needed looking after as well, like the landing gear, control surfaces, the engines, the cockpit and instrumentation, structural issues and so on. You can imagine that an air base is no place for shade tree mechanics!

Ed













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