Air Force photograph by Airman Bailee DarbasieMaj. Gen. Pete Gersten, U.S. Air Force Warfare Center commander looks on as Senior Airman Joseph Fleischli, 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron F-15 Eagle crew chief, explains his innovative idea to improve the delinking feeder component for the GAU-2 weapon system, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., Aug. 3. With the help of AFWERX-Vegas, Fleischli was able to meet the general and present his side stripping feeder delinking mechanism idea. AFWERX provides an entry way through the partnership with entrepreneurs, inventors, academia and creative minds to present brilliant ideas to be recorded, evaluated and passed to the proper channels within the Air Force for consideration.
Senior Airman Joseph Fleischli, with the help of AFWERX-Vegas, presented an innovative idea to improve the delinking feeder component for the GAU-2 weapon system to Maj. Gen. Pete Gersten, U.S. Air Force Warfare Center commander, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., Aug. 3.
The GAU-2 weapon system is a belt-fed machine gun designed to provide a light-weight, high rate of fire armament package for use on helicopters.
Fleischli, an F-15 Eagle crew chief assigned to the 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, submitted a proposal to improve the delinking feeder to AFWERX-Vegas earlier this year.
The delinking feeder component strips ammunition from the belt, driving it into a gun housing assembly where it is chambered.
According to Fleischli, his proposal improves the gun’s feeding component and jamming problems, helping to reduce maintenance cost and downtime.
“Airman Fleischli saw there was a better way to do business and he took it upon himself to manufacture and build an entire mechanical loading system that goes onto the [HH-60] minigun system,” said Gersten. “This sort of innovative culture is exactly what we’re trying to build here at Nellis and the Air Force is trying to build it through the AFWERX process.”
AFWERX provides an entry way through the partnership with entrepreneurs, inventors, academia and creative minds to present brilliant ideas to be recorded, evaluated and passed to the proper channels within the Air Force for consideration.
To learn more about how to showcase and register an idea go to http://afwerxdc.org/vegas-showcase/.
