August 12, 2003
Chemical Milling Tank Info
Regarding this July 10 photo (and the Bldg 5 demolition in general), reader Charley Austin, who worked on the design, construction and start up of new Bldg 5 from 1986-1989 wrote in to give a background on the tanks we see in the Bldg 5 pictures:
The image closest to Carson Street is Tank DC-05. It was the worlds largest Aluminum Chemical Milling Tank, holding 104,400 gallons of chemical milling solution.
It was really cool, it had gull wing type lids on top of it and was 12ft wide by 75 feet long by 15.5ft deep. Specifically designed for chemical milling of the C-17 fuselage sections which drove the width of the tank because they were almost 11ft wide. The C-17 floor beams at the time were one piece machined extrusions that were 68 ft. long.
The weird thing about the picture is (if I remember correctly) I believe that was the first tank we installed and it looks like it was the last to come out. We started putting the chem mill tanks in on the North and worked our way South to the anodize line.
Many thanks go out to Charley for sharing his expert insight!