KC-135T Edition 3 announcement!
My KC-135T Profiles Edition 1 & 2, aircraft 60-0337 "City of Spokane" are now complete! Now, I'm starting work on Edition #3 which will complete my profile for this particular serial number. The 3rd edition will be "Maintenance" and it will show this aircraft undergoing heavy, detailed inspections and maintenance. I'm thinking of heavy maintenance like a Periodic Inspection (PE) where flaps are lowered, spoilers are raised, panels removed, and engine cowlings open and boom lowered. Also, I would have the cargo bay and crew entry hatch and over wing hatches open. So there's a lot of work to build an interior in 2D. I'm creating these in Photoshop with many layers. So far, my KC-135 profile is 7.16 GB in size at about 48 x 24" at 400 ppi resolution, which is huge! It has over 913 layers with 27 Groups! It's very complex. So with this maintenance piece, I expect that number to increase dramatically. I have been and continue to do research and I'm relying on some memory as well as I used to work on my jet during these periodic inspections and help jack up the jet, remove and reinstall panels, open cowlings, lower the boom, and fix things while the jet was being inspected.
Here's a good image of what this level of inspection looks like:
Image credit: The 92nd and 141st Maintenance Squadrons and the 92nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron work on the last periodic inspection of the year Dec. 9, 2015, at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. During the initial phase of PE, panels are removed from the jet and Airmen look for discrepancies. Approximately 1,200 maintenance actions are found and completed throughout every PE. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Mackenzie Richardson) Public Domain.
And if you'd like to check out a video about this kind of inspection on the awesome Stratotanker, see:
KC-135T 60-0337 "City of Spokane" Profile Edition #3 - MAINTENANCE! Work in Progress - Day One!
Work In Progress / 11 July 2025
