Researchers at Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) have worked on several aircraft from Cessna 402s to a B-52 bomber and an F-16 fighter. And thanks to a new contract from the USAF, the list has grown to include KC-135 tankers. Through a six-year program, the Air Force Academy’s Center for Aircraft Structural Life Extension (CAStLE), Valdez International, S&K Technologies and NIAR will study three KC-135s using structural teardown examination methods. The purpose of the program is to assess the current damage levels of the USAF’s 40-50 year-old tanker fleet and to assess the viability of the fleet to the anticipated retirement date of 2040. Over the last eighteen months, NIAR personnel have worked with personnel from CAStLE and S&K Technologies to develop a 700-page set of structural teardown protocols, which provide step-by-step procedures and documentation requirements for the KC-135 teardown program.  NIAR has also validated these protocols on thirty-one teardown sections from the first teardown aircraft.  NIAR researchers will begin to thoroughly investigate some of the approximately 300 “hotspots” on the aircraft, which were identified by Boeing and Tinker AFB. These airframe sections will be examined using traditional structural teardown examination methods including large-scale section extraction, detailed disassembly, chemical coatings removal and non-destructive inspection (NDI). Examples of NDI include close visual inspection using light and low magnification, fluorescent liquid penetrant inspection, and eddy current inspection.