New egress facility bolsters production capabilities, fifth-gen aircraft support

  • Published
  • By Anthony S. Wallace
  • 576th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah – The 576th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron officially opened the doors of its new egress repair facility Dec. 10.

The shop, which sustains an average of 290 aircraft egress seats and associated equipment a year for five weapon systems has waited almost two years for the new facility.

The layout of the original work area was inefficient and often led to production delays. For example, technicians had one room for repairs while their tools, canopies, and hazardous class division 1.3 explosives that power the egress system were spread across multiple facilities.

In addition, it was designed for the legacy aircraft ACES II seats and was in use for more than 20 years. The old facility incorporated maintenance on the F-22 Raptor seats in 2006 and all three variants of the F-35 Lightning II seats in 2016.

This egress shop upgrade was long overdue.

The new facility increases industrial work space requirements for legacy and fifth-generation aircraft egress support by expanding the shop from a work area of 2,521 square feet to a facility that provides 12,298 square feet of work space, plus an additional 7,264 square feet for canopy work and storage.


The space increase also provides an expanded working area for 30 employees (supervision, technicians, schedulers, supply technicians, and tool room attendants) with an administration section, training section, tool room, explosive storage, and three separate work areas that will separate the ACES II seat repairs from the F-35 Martin-Baker seat repairs.

The new egress facility not only increases capacity and provides space for future Ogden Air Logistics Complex air frame workloads, but expands capabilities to better support fifth-generation aircraft, while consolidating the egress workload into one location that significantly reduces shop constraints and increases the shop’s throughput.