Here is a question for you. Say the Navy/Marines F-18 had a mechanical problem and landed at the Air Force base in Montana. Last time I checked, the Air Force had no F-18's. So does the Navy/Marines fly in a F-18 maintenance crew, or do the Air Force F-16/F-15 maintenance crew just boot up the F-18 service manual and go to work? Does the military require type-certification of their maintenance crews before turning a wrench?
We would always send a maintenance crew out. I was the flight engineer on a plane that made a beeline to Vandenberg AFB from the SoCal operating area one time. We had an oil pump at the rear of the turbine fail and then it turned into a tail pipe fire, which our fire supression system wouldn't put out. After we landed, assessed the damage, called home and told them what we needed they loaded up a replacement turbine and a crew into a van and drove down from Moffett Field to fix the plane. They sent another plane down to pick us up.
When I was crewing the C2 we would fly maintenenance crews and parts all over the country to fix broken planes.
bob
